Turtle tourist traps

Some conservation projects are keeping hatchlings in poor conditions to attract tourists.

Choose your welcome gift when you subscribe to BBC Wildlife magazine!

James Fair

Published: May 17, 2018 at 5:00 pm

Some sea turtle hatcheries around the world are cashing in on tourists but achieving nothing for turtle conservation, according to an ethical holiday company.

Responsible Travel has accused some projects of unnecessarily keeping hatchling turtles in tanks purely so that tourists can pick them up and take 'selfies'.

They are kept in overcrowded conditions in which diseases can be passed between the turtles.

"Sea turtle experts don't recommend tanks," says Responsible Travel's Vicki Brown, who drew up a set of guidelines for people wanting to visit turtle conservation projects. "I've read through several reports, and there are no benefits listed [for them]."

Responsible Travel says anyone wanting to visit a turtle conservation project should ask a number of questions before committing themselves.

Wildlife journalist

James Fair writes about wildlife conservation and broader environmental issues for a wide range of publications, including BBC Wildlife and BBC Countryfile magazines. James started his career as a journalist in the early 1990s, then spent a number of years working on conservation projects in South America, including an ultimately doomed effort to reintroduce an orphaned Andean bear cub into the wild in Bolivia. In 1999, James joined BBC Wildlife as a commissioning editor, while later filling the roles of staff writer, environment editor and keyboard destroyer-in-chief. In 2018, he went freelance, and now takes on a range of news, feature and report writing assignments, and is also the editor of the membership magazine of the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES). In 2019, he published his second book, 100 Great Wildlife Experiences: What to see and where.