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Status of leatherback turtles in South Africa

2.1) Overview The South African leatherback turtle nesting population and beaches have been described by Hughes (1974a, b and 1996). Briefly, the leatherback turtle nesting beaches in South Africa stretch for nearly 200km south from the Mozambique border. The beaches are mostly silica sand beaches rising steeply and reaching heights of 100m above sea level (Hughes 1996). The methods used in the annual nesting beach census have been standardised and a 56km section of beach (north and south of Bhanga Nek) is used as a standard index beach and this index beach is monitored nightly by EKZNW staff (see Figure 1 for example of the index beach and its relative numbers of nests). A combination of foot and vehicle patrols is used each night to collect data on nesting turtles. The leatherback turtle population in South Africa was reviewed in 1996 including data up to the 1994/1995 nesting season and then by Hughes in 1998 (Hughes 1996 and Figure 2). Results from the 32 years of monitoring reported in 1996 show a steady increase in the number of leatherback turtles nesting annually along the 56km index beach (Hughes 1996). Data from 1995 until 2004 was obtained from Nel and Papillion (2005) to update this figure.