Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) has launched an of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the dev­as­ta­tion of a tur­tle nest­ing site at Tur­tle Beach, a cru­cial site for en­dan­gered leatherback tur­tles in To­ba­go.

This af­ter a video on so­cial me­dia sur­faced show­ing land works from a pri­vate prop­er­ty run­ning through the sand and out in­to the sea. Along the path, dam­aged tur­tle eggs could be seen scat­tered in the area.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, EMA CEO Hay­den Ro­mano said the agency will leave no stone un­turned in in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter.

“An of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched. We have viewed the video. The leatherback tur­tles are com­ing up this sea­son and it’s an an­i­mal that has been around for so long and we need to pro­tect this species for our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren,” Ro­mano said, adding he was heart­bro­ken by the act.

“So this is very sad, in 2024 we don’t ex­pect this to be hap­pen­ing and I think a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion hap­pened last year. We thought it was dealt with be­cause we were in con­tact with the THA but I don’t re­mem­ber it be­ing to the ex­tent it was done this year.”

He called on To­bag­o­ni­ans to come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion on who was re­spon­si­ble for the act.

“If any­one has a video of the equip­ment do­ing the clear­ing, that will sure­ly as­sist us with our in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We are in the sec­ond month of the nest­ing sea­son and this is very sad. We want to know who is re­spon­si­ble be­cause it looks like there was a piece of equip­ment like an ex­ca­va­tor on site to do that,” he said.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Nigel Taitt said he was al­so aware of the mat­ter.

He couldn’t say, how­ev­er, whether the THA had launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

This re­cent in­ci­dent at Tur­tle Beach comes on the heels of a grue­some shark at­tack in the same area.

British na­tion­al Pe­ter Smith was se­vere­ly in­jured af­ter a bull shark sev­ered limbs on his left hand and thigh and in­flict­ed lac­er­a­tions on his stom­ach.

How­ev­er, En­vi­ron­men­tal Re­search In­sti­tute in Char­lot­teville (ER­IC) CEO and ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist Aljoscha Wothke said there is no sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence to link the two events and do­ing so would be ir­re­spon­si­ble.

“From a sci­en­tif­ic point of view there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty to link the de­struc­tion of the eggs to the at­tack or any cul­prit who de­stroyed the nests. There can­not be any sci­en­tif­ic rea­son­ing to say some­body dis­turbed the eggs, and that at­tract the sharks and that caused the in­ci­dent. It’s im­pos­si­ble.”

He added, “It is ir­re­spon­si­ble to make the link be­cause there’s no sci­en­tif­ic ba­sis. If the me­dia wants to re­port on it they can say—to re­late hon­est truth—that these things hap­pen there might be a re­la­tion­ship with it but it’s not based on sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence it’s an as­sump­tion. The re­al rea­son is it is just a trag­ic mis­take and very un­like­ly ac­ci­dent.”