our beach signs
As of right now the beaches here in St. Kitts are all "public", 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. From the perspective of endangered sea turtle preservation, this means the routine occurence of sand mining on our main leatherback laying beach (causing severe recession in the beach line as well as making giant pits that the turtles or hatchlings can fall into and become trapped), as well as people being allowed to drive big trucks and lead ATV tours up and down the beach (and when they inevitably drive over a nest or two there is certain to be a zero hatch rate from that nest). That said, these beach signs were very skillfully created by one of the leaders of the monitoring network -go Joseph!- to put at different points along the nesting beaches. The signs include information on local fisheries regulations (which includes a notice that during this season it's illegal to take eggs, kill or interfere with a nesting turtle,etc.), as well as general information on how to responsibly handle a sea turtle encounter, a 'turtle hotline' phone number, and information discouraging people from activities that could be harmful to the nests-- such as driving on the beach. While we can't make laws, we can at least make an appeal to people to act responsibly! =)