I am referring to one of our lead stories today in iNews Cayman regarding the release of the Inspection of the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF) (10-12^th December) Report submitted to the CTF on 17^th December 2012 and released to the media last Friday (25 January).

In the Executive Summary the report states:

“The panel concluded that there were no significant issues of concern regarding the public facing aspect of the operation.

“For the production side of the operation, however, there is clearly room for improvement in standards of care which will require immediate changes in infrastructure, processes, staffing and resources to rectify. Key among the panel’s concerns was the incidence of skin lesions and mortality levels in younger age classes. CTF should immediately implement additional intensive treatment and management of all animals with lesions based on best available information, euthanasia of animals with poor prognosis, and undertake veterinary- pathological investigations of dead animals.   The panel was concerned that similar recommendations had been made in the past but have not been acted upon.”

Tim Adams, Managing Director of CTF, responding to the Report said, “We are taking the findings and recommendations of the report very seriously. The Board of Directors and the Cayman Turtle Farm management team are committed to taking all possible steps to address the concerns listed by the external experts in the assessment report, and have already taken action on several items.”

I am sorry, Mr. Adams, that is not good enough. These recommendations were ALL made before and NOTHING WAS DONE! Why? Can we believe anything will be done now? Apart from a fulltime veterinarian being employed there was nothing positive said in your response and you have had over a month to digest the findings.

What I find incredible is what the CTF said after the very damaging World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) report was released. The WSPA findings included exactly what the latest report instigated by the CTF said concerning skin lesions and mortality levels in the turtles. (I have placed it in bold type).

The CTF publically claimed the WSPA findings were “groundless” as well as being “unfounded, erroneous and sensationalised.”

This is what Scientist and Wildlife campaigner, Dr. Neil D’Cruze has just said:

“This new evidence proves that the Farm knew WSPA’s investigation findings were true all along. Yet from the very start, contrary to expert opinion, the farm has publicly dismissed our evidence as “unfounded” and “sensationalist.”

“The observations revealed that a significant number of turtles have injuries consistent with severe overcrowding and that disease is a “serious problem”. To the best of our knowledge, the Farm has failed to look into the impact of handling, despite a recommendation to explore the turtles stress levels.”

So why did the CTF say this?

The following is verified by Freedom of Information (FOI) that we have in our possession:

18^th May WSPA contacted the Farms Management and requested a meeting to discuss in person. We provided our scientific report for review before meeting as a sign of goodwill and collaboration.

3^rd July WSPA met with Farm and key government officials (including Department of Environment and Department of Tourism) and presented our concerns. Present at the meeting was Professor Godley a respected UK turtle expert that had worked with the farm before.

On the 4^th July, Professor Godley was given unescorted access to all areas of the CTF in order to carry out a veterinary assessment.

Every tank was inspected for several minutes and turtles observed. Key, largely qualitative observations:

1. A significant proportion (possibly even a majority) of turtles exhibited skin lesions, generally to dorsal cervical area or axillary area. These varied markedly among tanks and among individuals with regard to incidence, extent and severity.

2. A smaller proportion of turtles presented with lesions suggestive of “shell rot”

3. A smaller number of animals with “floating syndrome” were observed

4. A few individuals (<10) were observed with lesions of the head and eyes.

5. A few individuals (<10) with obvious distal flipper damage consistent with alleged cannabilism, none as severe as pictured in the WSPA report.

6. No (0) animals with the congenital defects alleged to be present “throughout the farm”

Shocking.

And to make matters even worse for the CTF the WSPA have now formed a partnership with Humane Society International (HSI) to make a stand against the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF) – see separate story in today’s iNews Cayman “HSI joins WSPA in its stand against Cayman Turtle Farm”