From World Animal Protection

July 22 – Leading animal welfare charity World Animal Protection has today called for the DoE to join them in calling for an immediate end to all handling of sea turtles by tourists. This follows the Chief Conservation Officer of the Department of Environment’s (DoE) remarks that that this type of activity is cruel.

In response to an image of a sea turtle being held aloft by a tourist swimming in Cayman, the DoE Chief Conservation Officer Mark Orr said:

“There’s the bad thing just for the turtle. Chasing it around and grabbing it and pulling it to shore, or dragging it and holding it up in the air is going to stress a turtle out quite a bit, so it’s causing harm to the turtle in that way, so both it’s against the law and it is quite bad for the turtle.”

Cayman 27 then reported: “He says if you really want a picture holding a turtle that badly, head on over to the Turtle Farm.”

World Animal Protection CEO Steve McIvor said: “It is astonishing that the Chief Conservation Officer of the Department of Environment can on one hand rightly condemn the unnecessary stress and harm caused by a tourist grabbing a sea turtle in the wild, but with the same breath promote doing the exact same thing at the Turtle Farm.”

“We urge the DoE and the Cayman Islands Government (CIG) to follow their own advice and join us in calling for an immediate end to the handling of all turtles, be they those in the sea or those in concrete tanks at the Cayman Turtle Farm.”

“It is staggering hypocrisy for handling sea turtles in the wild to be a criminal act – punishable by up to $500,000 in fines and 4 years in jail – whilst providing tourists with the exact same activity at the Cayman Turtle Farm.”

Head of Wildlife Research at World Animal Protection, Dr. Neil D’Cruze, added: “We are glad that the DoE have finally admitted that tourist handling of turtles causes stress and harm, ‘is not cool’ and ‘is quite bad for the turtle’; something that World Animal Protection has been saying repeatedly for the past 4 years.”

“But we question once again why the DoE and Cayman Islands Government continue to support this exact same type of activity at the Turtle Farm.”

“The Cayman Islands Government seems to be turning a blind and hypocritical eye yet again to the cruelty the Turtle Farm causes to thousands of turtles every single year. It’s about time they woke up and ended turtle handling at the Farm.”

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