Two ancient turtles thought to be 150-170 years old were rescued from a certain slow death on the Nuku'alofa waterfront yesterday morning by local conservationists who saw their plight and rallied local businesses for support to save them.

Jo Kupu, also known as Tonga's "Turtle lady" was sure that the big turtles were Hawksbills, and said she had rescued over 600 turtles over the last six or seven years but the pair were among the largest she had ever seen. She believed they were females and that it was illegal to harvest them.

Their great size meant they were very old, "they are probably between 150 and 170 years old," she said.

All species of sea turtles are listed as threatened or endangered in the world but the hawksbill sea turtles are on an IUCN red alert list of critically endangered species.

It took five men to lift the exhausted pair onto the back of a truck, after a settlement was reached with the Touliki-Ma'ufanga family that was selling them for food. The turtles were rushed off to a recovery immersion in the tanks of the fisheries department. Then, later in the day, three more very old sea turtles, including green turtles, were discovered at the home of the fisherman who had received them in an overnight shipment from Ha'apai.

The turtles were all suffering from injuries, and bleeding from damaged shells after being dropped upside down and dragged on the ground. It is usual for fishermen to turn turtles upside down to keep them alive, while they try to find buyers.

Turtle Lady

"They suffocate when they are upside down, they choke and drown on their own saliva," said Jo.

Helping in the rescue was Taki Hausia the owner of "The Hideaway" eco-tourism venture on 'Eua island, whose plans for the day were put on hold after his heart went out to the turtles.

"I was driving along Vuna Road when I saw the turtles on the waterfront in the sun. I just had to turn around and go back to do something about it," he said. "They were slowly cooking inside their shells when they were left in the sun."

"It's no good trying to talk to these fishermen about environmentalism or conservation, they are only interested in getting some money," Taki said, and admitting that by buying the turtles to save them is actually creating a market for them. "But we had to save them."

Leveni and Jo Kupu had been alerted and were at the scene with Reece Proudfoot from Tonga Tourism.

They organized the rescue and said that the turtles' wounds and shells would be treated with antiseptics while they are held for several days in the Fisheries tanks. She said that SPREP officers would fly to Tonga early next week to put satellite tags on the turtles before they are released into the sea.

Fisheries

Tevita 'Ahoafi at the Fisheries Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Fisheries and Forestry, told Matangi Tonga Online yesterday that in Tonga the turtle harvest season is still open.

"But it is illegal to harvest female turtles of any size. Only the male turtles are allowed to be harvested but there is a limit on size - they must be over 45cm long."

Tevita was not sure how long the season lasted but he said the regulations were online. He said the fisheries division was working with SPREP in Samoa to mark Tonga's nesting turtles with satellite tags so that research could be done on the migration routes. Sosefina Vili is the head of the fisheries office in Ha'apai who was working on that project.

He said he had been to a SPREP workshop on tagging turtles but he was unable to determine the gender himself, "because we have not done any workshops on the turtle gender," he said. "Our inspectors saw the turtles today after they were brought over to the tanks, and they said they were all male," he said. "But if we find out that they are female our legal officer will take action."

However, Jo Kupu also strongly believed that several of the five turtles rescued yesterday were, in fact, females. "They always say they are males so that they can be taken away and eaten," she said.

Tu'i Malila

Jo's interest in Tongan turtles began when she was a young child growing up in Tonga in the early 1960s when her father Jack Taylor, a New Zealander, worked in education development and Jo had her photo taken with Queen Salote and Tu'i Malila at the Palace. (Tu'i Malila was a tortoise given to the royal family of Tonga by Captain James Cook and lived from about 1777 until 19 May 1965.)

Drastic decline

Studies of turtles in the Pacific over the past two decades have shown they have declined drastically, with a decline in nesting greater than 80% in most of the populations of the Pacific, which has been considered the species' major stronghold. Annual nesting female mortalities were estimated at around 30%, because humans are their main predators. The turtles are migratory and travel widely though the world's oceans.

Currently, throughout the world, it is illegal to trade hawksbill turtle products. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) website states that In order to succeed in keeping hawksbill turtles in existence, there must be cooperation among all nations that have hawksbill populations in their waters. "Free exchange of information on the turtles is needed to ensure that all nations are aware of the best and most efficient ways of keeping hawksbill turtles in existence," it states.