Page 39 - Atlas Sea Birds Ver1

A Hawksbill Turtle that was captured by fishing gear being re-
An Olive Ridley Turtle nesting in the Palmeirinhas region (photo leased in the Soyo region (photo Filipe Muabi, Projecto Kitabanga)
Michel Morais, Projecto Kitabanga)
Population sizes and trends

Records and counts of turtles and their nests on the coast overall sizes and trends of populations of these species in
of Angola were scarce and sporadic until 2003. From that Angola to be estimated.
date onwards, with the implementation of the Kitabanga No assessments of numbers of Loggerhead and Hawks-
Project, systemic monitoring of the Palmeirinhas region be- bill turtles in Angola were made because during extensive
gan, which later extended to other latitudes (Figure 1). This monitoring conducted over the past 20 years only a sin-
provided insight into densities and trends of Leatherback, gle nesting of C. caretta was observed in the region and
Green and Olive Ridley turtles at different localities along breeding by E. imbricata in Angola has yet to be confirmed.
the coast of Angola. Extensive ground and aerial surveys, Aside from the single nesting record some observations of
outside the regularly monitored localities (Figure 1), provid- C. caretta were made at sea and some E. imbricata were
ed important supplementary information that enabled the caught in fishing gear, especially juveniles (Morais 2015).

Average nest density / km (2003/2021)
0,00 0,50 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 0,00 0,20 0,40 0,60 0,80 1,00 0 40 80 120 160 200
Praia dos Pobres 0,00 0,00 122
Soyo 0,16 0,03 59
Musserra 0,50 0,00 63

Kissembo 0,03 0,33 133
Dande 0,00 0,00 9
Palmeirinhas 2,30 0,00 35
Cuanza 0,29 0,00 166
Nests sites
Sangano 0,47 0,00 29
Cabo Ledo 0,00 0,00 28
Longa 1,33 0,01 155
Caxiva 0,00 0,00 67

Cuio 0,90 0,09 20
Farol 0,00 0,67 51
Bentiaba 0,46 0,39 36
Furado 0,00 0,00 28
A B C
Pipas 0,00 0,29 12

Figure 3. Average number of nests per kilometer at different nesting sites along the Angolan coast for (A) Leatherback, (B) Green, and
(C) Olive Ridley turtles (breeding site locations are shown on Figure 1)

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