Nigeria’s conservation centre rescues another turtle from fishermen

The Biodiversity Preservation Centre in Akwa Ibom State, South-south Nigeria, has rescued an infant turtle, the green sea turtle, from some local fishermen who wanted to sell the poor animal as bushmeat.

This is coming about six months after two turtles were rescued in the state and handed over to the centre for rehabilitation.

Edem Eniang, a professor of wildlife and head of the centre, showed the latest rescued turtle to PREMIUM TIMES, Sunday afternoon, at the centre in Uyo.

The fishermen, who caught the turtle some three days before as a by-catch in Cross River, a major river in South-south Nigeria, were bargaining with potential buyers when someone around a community in Itu Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, alerted the centre, said Mr Eniang, who rushed to the community with his team to buy it from the fishermen.

‘Big meat’

The fishermen had pegged the price of the turtle at N80,000.

“The animal has big meat that can go round everyone in a family,” they reportedly told the team from the conservation centre, apparently thinking Mr Eniang and others wanted to eat the turtle.

“When I heard it, I felt so angry inside of me,” a man from the conservation centre, who was part of the rescue team, told PREMIUM TIMES. “Must people eat every animal they see in the wild?”

After several hours of bargaining, Mr Eniang paid N20,000 for the turtle. But that was after he succeeded in taking the fishermen and the turtle away from the local community and bringing them to the Biodiversity Preservation Centre, which is miles away.

The centre gave the fishermen some additional money, which they demanded as their transport fare.

“What we paid (to the fishermen) was insignificant because we threatened that they were going to be arrested by the police for engaging in illegal trade in animals.

“I had to open my phone to show them photos of people who were arrested in Lagos for selling bushmeat,” Mr Eniang said.

The turtle’s length and width was 42 cm each. A full-grown adult is at least 1.5 metres long.

Green sea turtle is classified as an endangered species.

They “are threatened by overharvesting of their eggs, hunting of adults, being caught in fishing gear and loss of nesting beach sites,” according to the Worldwildlife.org.

“The green turtle is one of the largest sea turtles and the only herbivore among the different species. Green turtles are in fact named for the greenish colour of their cartilage and fat, not their shells. In the Eastern Pacific, a group of green turtles that have darker shells are called black turtles by the local community. Green turtles are found mainly in tropical and subtropical waters. Like other sea turtles, they migrate long distances between feeding grounds and the beaches from where they hatched,” says Worldwildlife.org

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‘Biggest news in turtle conservation’

Mr Eniang said the rescue of the turtle in Akwa Ibom was the biggest news in turtle conservation in Nigeria.

“By all scientific knowledge, this animal is not supposed to be found there in that water (Cross River) because that is fresh water, and not salt water,” Mr Eniang said.

He said he contacted some animal experts around the world and all of them agreed it was strange for the green sea turtle to be found in fresh water.

The salt water in Akwa Ibom is in the Atlantic Ocean, around the Ibeno, with an estimated distance of at least 160 km from where the turtle was caught.

“Who knows? Maybe it’s the climate change we talk about that has made animals go beyond their territory,” Mr Eniang said.

By afternoon, Mr Eniang, assisted by Enim Akwa, a pilot in Akwa Ibom, and Mr Akwa’s wife, Enwongo Cleopas-Akwa prepared the turtle for a journey to Ibeno where it would be released into the Atlantic Ocean.

Mr Akwa and his wife are partners at the Biodiversity Preservation Centre. They were involved in the turtle’s rescue and release.

“We took it to the farthest part of the beach. We kept it on the shores. It then started moving towards the bigger waves. It took a while for it to acclimatise itself, but in three minutes it crawled through the waves and into the ocean. We kept seeing it for a while till it disappeared into the waters. It was majestic,” Mrs Cleopas-Akwa narrated to PREMIUM TIMES how the turtle was released into the ocean.

“Immediately we arrived at the beach and it started hearing the waves, it started flapping its flippers so fast, like out of excitement.”