Cancun, Mexico It began on Wednesday with some first and peculiar evacuations before the arrival of the hurricane Beryl to the Caribbean coast: eggs of tortuga.
Municipal workers in Cancún, a tourist enclave in southeastern Mexico, cleared a section of the beach used for nesting turtles and placed thousands of sand-covered eggs in hundreds of coolers to transport them to a safer place.
Beryl remained off the Mexican coast near Jamaica on Wednesday, but was expected to reach the southern coast of Cancun late Thursday or early Friday.
“This is a very strong hurricane, with tremendous waves, it will destroy all the beaches, the corrals,” explained biologist Graciela Tiburcio, one of the most recognized turtle experts in the country. “Getting them out is not the best thing, but they are facing an emergency situation in which if they are not removed, everything will be lost.”
In other areas, sandbag barriers were made to create safe corrals to protect turtle nests from the expected strong waves.
Several species of sea turtles arrive on the beaches of Cancun and its surroundings to lay their eggs in the sand, from where the babies emerge a few weeks later and crawl out to sea.
Hawksbill turtles, like all sea turtles, are protected species in Mexico and it is forbidden to remove their eggs. People are usually told not to approach the nests, because the sand keeps them at the ideal temperature for hatching.
It is also believed that these turtles use the natural light on the beaches to orient themselves and, in many cases, return to the same place once they are adults. But the waves and the swell of Beryl could drag the eggs out to sea, where they would be lost.
“It is a desperate situation,” added the biologist. “I would probably do the same, I would save what I could,” even if it means “casualties,” added this scientist, who is not related to the Cancun officials.
The municipal environment department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on where the eggs were taken. In a social media post, the office said it had dug up more than 10,000 from some 93 nests.
Further south, amid preparations for Beryl’s arrival, the military and police were encouraging other evacuations: the 700 residents of a small fishing village 180km south of Cancun, Punta Allen, were asked to leave because the town is on a narrow strip of land that could be affected. On Wednesday afternoon, some residents seemed willing to leave but others did not want to because it would mean leaving their possessions behind.
This time, all levels of government have intensified their warning messages with sufficient advance notice so that everyone is prepared for Beryl, something that did not happen last year when Hurricane Otis strengthened extremely quickly to reach Category 5 and devastated Acapulco, on the Pacific coast. The cyclone left more than 50 dead and thirty people are still missing.
Source: With information from AP
