24 hours with Andreas Demetropoulos
Turtle watch
The conservation of Mediterranean turtles has been a life’s work for the former director of the Fisheries Department
Few of us are lucky enough to have a hobby that becomes a job, but Dr. Andreas Demetropoulos counts himself among the fortunate few. Once the director of the Fisheries Department, his love of marine biology has led him to become one of the world’s leading experts on turtle conservation. It is an area that needs an advocate: in the last century 100,000 Mediterranean turtles were exported for turtle soup resulting in population numbers dropping to around 5,000 loggerhead turtles and only 1,000 green turtles.
“Sadly,” said Andreas “you have to lose things before you appreciate them”.
During the long, hot summer, turtle conservation is a 24-hour job. Andreas’ day will start at dawn, scanning the beaches for the tell-tale tracks to mark nests. Late into the night he will watch silently for turtles to leave their nests and, as quickly as possible covering them with metal cages to prevent disturbance from foxes and dogs. Some of the female turtles have become old friends. It takes 20 to 30 years for a female to mature and she will always return to the beach where she was born. This is one of the problems turtles face – if she returns to a beach now developed and she is disturbed a female turtle will abort her eggs in the sea.
During a season a turtle will lay up to 500 eggs in two or three batches. One of Andreas and wife Myroula’s jobs is to monitor areas, such as Coral Bay, where turtles still lay eggs and to move them to the hatcheries on Lara beach before the swarms of tourists arrive to inhabit the sunbeds. These can be long, hot nights as turtles can be fickle, taking hours to decide where to dig their nests. Andreas said he sometimes silently thinks “get on with it girl”. The slightest movement could send the turtles back to the sea where they will drop their eggs. Over the course of every summer he loses five to six kilos patrolling the beaches.
The hope is that by hatching eggs at Lara, a turtle’s magnetic guidance system will bring it back in 20 years to a beach that is safe to lay on.
Conservation for turtles has to forward plan and accept that much of the island will have increased development. This is another problem. When the eggs finally hatch, the young turtles are drawn to the sea by the light of the moon. The lights of hotels will confuse them into going the wrong way. Andreas said they have two or three calls a season from hotels that find young hatchlings heading towards the lights of a swimming pool.
The station on Lara beach was the first in the Mediterranean, established by Andreas and his wife 30 years ago, which means they are just beginning to see the results of their efforts. Without the cages about 50 to 80 per cent of the nests’ eggs would have been destroyed. Andreas now knows that turtles use a complicated magnetic imprint system to navigate across the seas to the exact spot where they were born and, for this reason, the cages used are aluminium, which is non magnetic.
“It is much safer not to play God, nature knows best,” he said, referring to a project at the hatcheries to hand rear turtles and to release them as adolescents. They now wonder if this was a mistaken concept, if by having larger flippers to drag themselves across the sand the turtles were damaged. Of course, sometimes he has to interfere, he has learnt how to mend their damaged shells with fibreglass, or help heal a broken flipper.
Winter days will be different for Andreas, when he is tied to his computer, analysing research and writing. There is so much still to understand about these incredible creatures and he is delighted at the cooperation that exists in the Mediterranean between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus – “multi-communalism at its best”.
Now, with the help of the UN, he runs training courses throughout the summer for volunteers at Lara beach, teaching them the practical knowledge to mark and protect nests. They label and tag the female turtles causing as little disturbance as possible. He says he is “cautiously optimistic” about the future. He is pleased that tourists take so much interest in turtles but, of course, the numbers can be hard to manage, sometimes coach loads of people will turn up at Lara hoping to see turtles, but they are well intentioned and they help provide funds.
His message to the people of Cyprus is, “think about what Cyprus you would like to leave as a legacy to your children and grandchildren, have a vision and make it happen”. Andreas remembers days with his father out in the countryside of Cyprus learning the names of birds and flowers. “Conservation is something that we can all be part of,” he urged, “get our children involved, teach them to treat everywhere as a national park, learn respect for nature.” We can all do our bit, however small, by cleaning up our rubbish, not driving on beaches, enjoying without destroying. And, as Andreas said, “once we have lost something we cannot get it back.”
Turtle groups around the island are always need support and volunteers, if you would like to get involved or have a talk at your school of group. Please contact David and Linda Stokes on [email protected]
