With the country now into the Easter/Passover weekend, the tradition of Hispanic cultures within the United States dining on sea turtle for their paschal meal has raised serious questions regarding the effectiveness of the U.S. position on sustainable use of marine resources. The practice of turtle meat for holiday meals is drawing public condemnation from Wildcoast, an environmental group focused on the Mexican and U.S. Baja California coastline. That group’s claim that an estimated 35,000 sea turtles are hunted and eaten by Mexican and U.S. citizens each year causes problems for U.S. marine turtle policies.

Traditionally, the U.S. delegation to the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has taken a zero-tolerance stance on issues regarding the sustainable use of sea turtles. The U.S. delegation joined NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Species Survival Network (SSN), and others in objecting to the registering of the Cayman Islands Green Turtle Farm as a CITES-approved captive breeding facility at the 12th Conference of the Parties to CITES in Santiago, Chile last November. The U.S. has also led the opposition to Cuba’s attempts to sell its stock piles of hawksbill carapace scuts acquired from its government-controlled sustainable fishery.

The U.S. continually holds itself as a premier defender of sea turtles objecting to other nations’ proven sustainable sea turtle operations lest they encourage illegal trade in the various marine turtle species. Unfortunately, the U.S. itself is the sight of uncontrolled sea turtle poaching, a fact known globally but all but ignored within the U.S. itself. NGOs resident within the U.S. are prime movers and shapers of U.S. sea turtle policies. These groups stand ready to blame commercial fisheries for perceived declines in sea turtle numbers. They tend to ignore animal predators (either on land or at sea) preying on sea turtles and their nests. They also tend to be very vague on numbers stating only that all sea turtle species are considered “endangered or threatened.”

During Christmas, Lent and Easter, Wildcoast issues press statements condemning the Spanish cultural tradition of eating sea turtle during these religious holidays. The group has gone so far as to contact the Vatican to have sea turtle flesh declared “red meat” and not fish in hopes that a Papal statement would deter centuries of tradition. The Wildcoast information continues the NGO habit of providing sketchy data. For example it talks about greens and loggerheads as the prey of a reformed turtle poacher but also references the use of turtle oil for medicinal purposes. That latter statement suggests leatherback poaching in the Baja California region, a fact acknowledged in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Obviously the U.S./NGO approach to sea turtles, that is zero-use, has failed to change either cultural habits or deter illegal harvests. So the question that begs to be asked is why does the U.S. refuse to examine an approach that has worked for decades, namely the Cuban model where a highly regulated fishery not only provides turtle flesh to its Hispanic population but also deters illegal and unregulated poaching?