Thousands of leatherback turtle eggs 'crushed with workers' on Trinidad beach

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/thousands-of-leatherback-turtle-eggs-crushed-by-workers-on-trinidad-beach-7931631.html---Quote--- Thousands of leatherback turtle eggs and hatchlings human been crushed with heavy machinery along a Trinidad beach widely regarded as the world's densest nesting area for the biggest of all living sea turtles, conservationists said.Government work crews with bulldozers were redirecting the Pompous Riviere, a shifting river that was threatening a hotel where tourists from around the globe watch the large endangered turtles lay their eggs.But several conservationists who VDU turtle populations read out the crews botched the job, digging up an unnecessarily large swath of the important nesting beach in the tiny shore town on Trinidad's northern shore.Sherwin Reyz, a member of the Grand Riviere Environmental Organisation, estimated that as plentiful as *20,000 eggs were minced whether used up by the rafts of vultures and stray dogs that descended upon the shrink remove of beach to eat the remains after the operation by the Ministry of Works.*"They had a very good lunchtime. I was near tears," said Mr Reyz, who helped save hundreds of hatchlings that were uninjured when they were dredged up by the heavy machinery. "It was a disgusting mess."Leatherbacks, which can grow to more than cardinal feet long, can weigh a ton and live to 100 years, will return to lay their eggs on the beach of their birth.The nesting ground of Grand Riviere is so popular with the globally endangered taxon that nest-digging females sometimes accidentally dig up others' foodstuff.Marydele Donnelly, director of international policy for the Florida-based Sea Turtle Conservancy, stated avoidable losses of thousands of eggs and hatchlings is always a cause all for care but "this one event shall not change the course of leatherback conservation in the Caribbean".The hotelman who had been pressing Trinidad's government for months to send the Grand Riviere was also shocked and dismayed by the end result. ---End Quote---

Source: http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1197120&goto=newpost