Ruth Allen
ruthmedia
52 Carrington Street
Glasgow, Scotland G4 9AL
ruth@ruthmedia.com
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Journalist and Public Relations Consultant
: Turtle Man
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Turtle Man by Ruth Allen
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Dr Yakup Kaska
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In recent years, thanks largely to tourism and football, a strong Glasgow-Turkish connection has been established. A little known part of this connection is the Glasgow-turtle link. Hoping to change this is the man who has done most to forge it - Dr. Yakup Kaska, thirty year old Assistant Professor of Biology at Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey.
Since gaining his Ph.D from Glasgow University in 1998, Yakup has become Turkey's foremost expert on the loggerhead sea turtle, leading the campaign to conserve this endangered species, through his lecturing work and his summer field trips to the turtle beaches. It was the data gained from years' worth of field trips that gained Yakup his Ph.D after four years of study at Glasgow, and now he is anxious to spread the word of the turtles' plight to a wider audience.
"Surprisingly little is known about the life cycle of sea turtles,"says Yakup. "We know that in the mating season from May to October, female turtles will head for the beaches where they themselves were hatched over twenty years before. After struggling up the beach, each female will dig out a nest and lay about a hundred eggs, before returning to the sea. Two months later, the hatchlings emerge and instinct leads them on a hazardous journey to the sea. Those that survive will spend about a year close to the beach then disappear for twenty to twenty-five years till the females return to the beach and lay their own eggs. What happens in between is a mystery, and that is one of the many riddles in the life cycle of the turtle that we are trying to solve."
The most important part of Yakup's fieldwork is to document the egg-laying activities of the turtles on the beaches, as this is where the future of the species faces its greatest threat. "The problems the turtles are facing come from a variety of sources - both natural and man-made," explains Yakup. "Tourism is taking over many of the turtles' traditional breeding beaches and harmful by-products such as noise, pollution and bright flashing lights affect their breeding patterns." As the hatchlings emerge and head for the sea, it is natural as well as human predators that threaten their survival - foxes, crabs and dogs can fatally intercept their fifteen minute struggle to their natural habitat. "Photo-sensitive pollution, such as lights from hotels, discos and barbecue fires, represents the main man-made hazards," adds Yakup. "The hatchlings' instinct is to head to the reflected light of the sea, and any artificial lights can send them in the wrong direction where they die of exhaustion."
Yakup and his field work team of Turkish and overseas students are trying to combat these problems through a variety of measures. Educating tourists through leaflet distribution on the beaches is combined with practical steps such as protecting vulnerable nests with small metal cages and lending a helping hand to struggling turtles during their night-time breeding efforts. Any eggs that appear to be in imminent danger are removed from the nests to artificial hatcheries. "Every move of every turtle on every beach is recorded each night by our teams," says Yakup.
"This detailed information has provided the raw material for my studies, and over the years I hope it will grow to give a detailed picture of the life cycle of the turtles. We tag each turtle we come across so that in future years we can follow their progress and hopefully solve some of the mysteries."
The most vital evidence that Yakup is gathering at the moment concerns the temperature at which the turtle eggs incubate, as this area holds some of the greatest threats to the long-term survival of the breed. "During the hatching process, a temperature of around 26-28 degrees produces males, 32 degrees or above produces females, and a temperature in between produces a mix of male and female," explains Yakup. "With threats such as global warming, we are in danger of fatally upsetting the gender ratio. It is vital that we build up a pattern of what is happening and take steps to right any imbalance."
The information gathered by Yakup and his dedicated international team - most prominently an annual Austrian contingent from Vienna University - will play a key role in the conservation process which Yakup has almost single-handedly got under way. With 'turtle camps' to supervise at 'turtle beaches' up and down the Turkish Mediterranean coast, Yakup's summers are spent under canvas, far from the academic trappings of his gleaming new university at Pamukkale. Midnight expeditions with measuring devices and charts have become a way of life for him over the past twelve years.
"There is so much to be measured and catalogued," he explains. "We note down the dimensions of the turtles and their carapace plates, and the size and direction of their tracks. We map out the site and depth of their nests, as it has to be a certain depth for the eggs to survive. Of course we take the temperature of the nests and count the number of hatchlings that emerge - usually 80% of the eggs laid, though their numbers are cut down by all the hazards to face on their way to the sea."
The results of Yakup's annual findings have been published in international journals and delivered as papers at international symposia in the United States and Mexico, contributing to the growing pool of international knowledge of the sea turtle problem.
Yakup's interest in turtles was awakened during his years as a biology undergraduate with turtle expert Dr. Ibrahim Baran, at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, where he went to study from his home village of Tavas, near Denizli.
"A 1988 World Wildlife Fund report had highlighted the dangers facing the sea turtle population, and I joined the university field trips to the beaches of North Cyprus and the Turkish Mediterranean," says Yakup. "I became more and more interested in these fascinating creatures. There are seven species of sea turtles in the world, and all of them are facing environmental problems of various types. Here in Turkey, we have two of these species, the loggerhead - caretta-caretta - and the green turtle - chelonia mydos - both of whose habitats in the Mediterranean are under threat. There may only be a few thousand or even just a few hundred left."
On the six hundred kilometres of beaches on Turkey's coast, there are seventeen important nesting grounds, and Yakup and his teams are trying to set up protective measures on each of these. The initial concentration is on beaches most immediately threatened by tourism - popular resorts like Dalyan, Calis Beach, Fethiye and Patara - while secondary work is focussed on beaches on the less tourist orientated eastern Mediterranean coast and on North Cyprus.
On a typical year on a beach, 100-200 nests might be made and 7,000-14,000 eggs laid - but only less than a half that number will make it to the sea as hatchlings. "This is not a happy situation for the future of the species - we must take steps to reverse the trend," says Yakup. "Sea turtles are among the oldest creatures in the world - anything between 100-200 million years on earth, compared to mankind's one million. It would be tragic if they were to disappear through our failure to look after our world."
Yakup has happy memories of his four years in Scotland, and is anxious to recruit more supporters for his cause from his 'second home'. "I enjoyed my years in Glasgow so much, first in university residences then in a flat of my own," he says. "Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, and it was good to be so close to the natural beauties of the Highlands. Everyone in Scotland responded very positively to my turtle studies, and I'm hoping that they will now support my fight to conserve this species, as it is part of our common natural heritage."
Yakup hopes his message will be heard both by holidaymakers coming to the beach resorts where the turtles are under threat, and by students who might want to join his field trip camps, to spend the summer under canvas observing the turtles. The support of the academic community in Scotland is very important to Yakup.
Though Pamukkale is one of Turkey's oldest tourist attractions - site of the unique natural phenomenon of the white calcified waterfalls that give it its 'cotton castle' name - the University of Pamukkale is one of Turkey's newest. As such, it is struggling to find the cash to fund Yakup's research to the full, and he relies on as much voluntary assistance as possible.
"I found Glasgow University such a large, old and well-established institution compared to my own," he comments. "I made so many good friends there among staff and students, and I would like to continue our international links and cooperation. I would love it if anyone who is interested in joining our campaign would come over and work with us over the summer at our turtle camps, and help increase our knowledge of these fascinating creatures to ensure their survival."
Dr. Yakup Kaska can be contacted at the Faculty of Arts and Science, Department of Biology, University of Pamukkale, Denizli, Turkey; e-mail caretta@pamukkale.edu.tr;
website www.caretta.pamukkale.edu.tr/
Some do's and don'ts for holidaymakers on turtle beaches
Don't
.visit nesting beaches at night - mother turtles are frightened by light and noise and have to drop their eggs in the sea use speed boats within a mile of beaches - the air-breathing turtles swim at sea surface and cannot dive out of the way in time
.leave fires burning on the beach - the light distracts hatchlings who follow it rather than heading for the seathrow plastic bags into the sea - turtles mistake them for their jelly-fish food and die when they eat them
.stick umbrella poles into nesting beaches - it can enter nests under the sand and pierce eggs and kill hatchlings
.use vehicles or go for horse rides on beaches - wheels and hooves can crush eggs buried under the sand .handle hatchlings - on their way to the sea, hatchlings are learning the characteristics of the beach so they can return in years to come
.dig in the sand or let dogs loose - turtle nests can be destroyed, especially by dogs who like to eat the eggs
. .leave obstacles on the beach - any objects get in the way of nesting turtles and hatchlings heading for the sea
Do
follow the above advice and help preserve one of the world's endangered species -
"Let them survive - together with us."
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