The Hargreaves Turtle

Chelonia Hargreavesia

do Tristao described the turtles of Tamba- Tamba in his account of his time on the island.
Thomas Cock also cited their presence as a ready source of food:
' upwords (sic) of a hundred lbs weight, they provide the most tenderest meat... and are well easily taken. They exist and recreate in such grate (sic) numbers that the demands of even one thousand population would scarcely dent there (sic) numbers.'
Of course, Cock was being optimistic.
By the time that Hargreaves was in the archipelago just 50 years after the mutineers landed he estimated that there were approximately 1,000 adult turtles there during the mating season. According to Hargreaves 40% of eggs/ baby turtles never reached maturity.
Orlando Hooper, Tamba- Tamba's oldest resident, remembers the black days of the 1950's when there were ' about a dozen' turtles coming up the beach in the mating season.
An increased interest in conservation has helped to remedy the decline, and WWF experts say the population now approaches that of Hargreaves' day, with islanders being allowed to harvest set quotas of turtles to meed traditional craft and culinary needs.