Cuba Undertakes Actions to Protect Sea Turtle

The sea turtle festival in the town of Júcaro, south of this city, involved an important practice to preserve the species in the Jardines de la Reina National Park in the Cuban central region.

With the participation of children, youngsters, fishermen and neighbors of the coastal community, are developed literary and plastic art contests, instructional games, lectures and educational actions on the care and safeguard of the species.

Juan Carlos Pina, a member of the national group of the Sea Turtle Program on the Island, told Prensa Latina that these events are of great importance at this time of the year, the period of reproduction of the chelonian.

Experts from the Company for the Protection of Flora and Fauna and the Research Center on Coastal Ecosystems of Cayo Coco frequently make sample on the beaches where three species of turtles spawn, which inhabit the area: hawksbill, the loggerhead turtle and green turtle.

The Jardines de la Reina National Park, located on the southern coast of Ciego de Avila, 430 kilometers from Havana, is one of the largest nesting sites of the hawksbill turtle in Cuba and an area with plenty food for those former inhabitants of the ocean , he noted.

For this reason it is vital to maintain constant vigilance and to develop environmental actions to take care of their habitat and to avoid predators, mainly humans or poaching.