TURTLE
TRACKERS
THE
IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN’S REMOTE
ARNAVON ISLANDS, A PROJECT
TO HELP ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES IS UNLOCKING THE MYSTERIES
OF MIGRATION
BY JENNIFER S. HOLLAND
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIM CALVER
GOING THE DISTANCE: A hawksbill turtle named Princess Nadiana, with a
satellite tracking tag, begins a 1,200-mile swim to the Great Barrier Reef.
M
HOMING INSTINCT
Female hawksbill
turtles spend up
to 35 years at sea
before returning to
the Arnavon Islands
to nest for the first
time. Here, Leslie
Rubaha and Linald
Madada count the
eggs laid by a hawksbill turtle on Kerehikapa Island.
MAMA KAWAKI ISN’T FOND OF WALLS. IN A MAKESHIFT
pen beneath palm trees on Kerehikapa Island, the turtle
repeatedly butts her head against the sideboards, trying to
knock them down.
Wearing sand-caked flip-flops and board shorts, Rick
Hamilton looks on at the 4-foot-long, 150-pound turtle with
admiration. “That is the biggest, feistiest hawksbill I’ve ever
seen,” he says. “She’s awesome.”
They make an odd pair. Hamilton is the marine scientist
who heads The Nature Conservancy’s Melanesia program.
Sporting a scruffy look and on-again, off-again reading glasses,
the Brisbane-based scientist seems part geeky researcher,
part Aussie gator wrestler. Mama Kawaki, probably in her 40s,
appears ancient. She is full of eggs and ready to nest.
Named for their hooked beak, hawksbill turtles are
renowned for their color-splashed shells, which have long fed
the global demand for “tortoiseshell.” Hawksbills live throughout tropical waters worldwide, but those around here are very
loyal to a remote quartet of islands called the Arnavons.
The Arnavons lie near the western end of the Solomon
Islands archipelago, a volcanic chain of more than 900
islands strung out across nearly 1,000 miles of the South
Pacific. Nearby islands are dotted with dense villages of stilt
houses, but except for a handful of rangers, the Arnavons
themselves are uninhabited. With their hardy reefs and
relatively protected beaches, the islands are the hawksbills’
prime breeding ground: More females haul out here to lay
eggs than anywhere else in the South Pacific.
“It’s truly a paradise for these animals,” Hamilton says.
“We just want to keep it that way.”
Historically, however, humans have not been kind to
hawksbills. The turtles are a traditional part of the diet and
ceremonies of people here, but they have also long been a
source of easy cash. Beginning in the 1800s, islanders slaughtered hawksbills en masse with spears and sold the shells to
foreign traders to make art and jewelry.
Today, hawksbills are listed by the International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered.
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NAT URE CON SER VAN CY SPR IN G 2017
Fishing boats and nesting habitat degradation have taken a toll.
And despite legal protection, commercial poaching continues;
even young turtles are killed, stuffed and sold as curios. “Honestly,” Hamilton says, “I’m surprised there are any left at all.”
Yet there is hope. Thanks to a series of conservation
efforts in the 1990s, hawksbills are rebounding. Hamilton has
arrived here with 10 satellite tracking tags, on a quest to learn
more about the hawksbills’ nesting behavior, where they go
after they leave the Arnavons and why some wait as long as
seven years between nesting seasons.
In just a few hours, the team will release Mama Kawaki
with one of those tags affixed to her carapace. What it reveals
about her nesting, migration and foraging habits will help
shape stronger conservation strategies for these poorly understood animals. Says Hamilton, “We have a lot to learn.”
A BRITISH PROTECTORATE SINCE 1893, THE SOLOMON
Islands—a group of six major islands—were occupied by the
Japanese during World War II and were the site of bitter
battles, including Guadalcanal. The nation achieved self-governance in 1976 and independence two years later. The new
government declared the Arnavons a hawksbill sanctuary.
But traditional hunters struck back: In 1982, a villager
named Rence Zama burned down a government field station.
Emboldened, hunters sharpened their spears, and by the late
1980s the annual take had risen to more than 4,000 turtles.
TNC arrived around the same time. By 1995, the organization had helped establish the nearly 40,000-acre Arnavon
Community Marine Conservation Area. A national ban on
trading turtle products followed.
And sentiment here has shifted. Today, Zama—who served
three years in jail for the arson—is a member of the board that
oversees the marine conservation area. “I have changed my
thinking,” he says. “I was a hunter. But now we must make
sure the turtles are still here for the next generation.”
Except for the hours that females go ashore to nest,
hawksbills spend their entire lives at sea. They face a
torrent of threats. Birds, crabs and other predators snap
up many hatchlings as they race from their nests to the
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Sikopo
Island
Wagina
Island
Kerehikapa
Island
Santa Isabel
Island
Arnavon Islands
Conservation Area
Area enlarged
N
Solomon
Islands
Australia
Kia
0
0
10 mi
Solomon Sea
10 km
HAWKSBILL PARADISE: The isolated quartet of islands known as the Arnavons
is the largest breeding ground for hawksbill turtles in the South Pacific.
SHIFTING THE BALANCE
Formed in 2015, the group called KAWAKI aims to give local
women a say in conservation and resource management in
the Arnavons. Theirs is a voice rarely heard in this largely
patriarchal society. KAWAKI draws its name from the first
letters of Katupika, Wagina and Kia—communities that for
decades fought one another over fishing and turtle-hunting
rights. Now, the women are working together for the future.
KAWAKI was started by women from the three communities, along with Robyn James, The Nature Conservancy’s
Melanesia conservation director. The group’s roughly 25
members are raising awareness about the importance of the
Arnavon Islands and working to protect the environment and
preserve their culture. They are also developing new sources
of income, such as ecotourism and small, women-run businesses, to offer alternatives to poaching.
“If you believe in them, the women become confident
and take a stand,” James says. “I love seeing them find
their strength.”
It hasn’t been easy. “Our men think of themselves first,”
says Nesta Niu of Kia village. “They put up barriers when
women organize. But now more are supportive because they
see that women’s input helps them and doesn’t take away
their power.”
In 2015, four KAWAKI members attended the National
Mining Forum to raise awareness about an industry that could
take a heavy environmental toll. Members have joined the
board of the Arnavons Community Marine Conservation Area,
which oversees conservation and development projects and
provides rangers to protect nesting hawksbill turtles.
The women are serious about erasing historical divisions
and making their mark on conservation. “KAWAKI unites
us,” says Jane Stephen, deputy chair of KAWAKI and a Katupika community member. “A lot of women with their hands
together can do big things.”
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NAT URE CON SER VAN CY SPR IN G 2017
ocean’s edge. And the water is no haven from birds above
or reef sharks below.
During their first years of life, “the hatchlings are very
small and very vulnerable,” floating where the currents take
them, Hamilton says. “As few as one per thousand makes it to
maturity and returns to nest.” That can take up to 35 years.
But hawksbills have been getting help. Local rangers
trained by TNC find and mark nests, protect the eggs from
predation by birds and relocate nests above the high-tide line
if necessary. They also help hatchlings scramble down the
coral-strewn sand to the sea. Perhaps most important, they
deter poachers out to kill nesting females on the beaches.
Those efforts have made a big difference. “Since the marine
conservation area was established, the number of nests in the
Arnavons has doubled” to more than 1,200 a year, Hamilton
says. And “while their populations are still well below historic
highs,” he says, “there are enough around to teach us a lot
about hawksbill population dynamics and migrations.”
That’s what led Hamilton to show up with a case full of
satellite tracking tags last summer.
MAMA KAWAKI, NAMED AFTER A TNC-SUPPORTED GROUP
that boosts women’s role in natural resource decision-making,
will be one of Hamilton’s 10 trailblazers. Rangers caught her
on Sikopo as she sought a nesting spot and quickly boated
her to Kerehikapa.
Here, they lug her to shore to be measured and fitted with a
satellite tag. One ranger holds a rag over Mama Kawaki’s eyes
and massages her neck. Another wipes dirt from her carapace,
exposing its rich colors, and sands a fist-sized area. Hamilton
brushes strong epoxy over fiberglass mesh to affix the onepound tracking device, which resembles a restaurant pager
with an antenna.
Each time she surfaces to breathe, the tag will transmit her
location to an orbiting satellite; Hamilton can then use that
information to build detailed migration maps.
Funded by private donors mostly from Hong Kong and
the United States, the project has several aims: to better
understand hawksbill nesting, migration and foraging
patterns; to boost education in the Solomons and around
the world about the hawksbills’ plight; and to determine the
effectiveness of current protected areas.
Hamilton taps the tag on Mama
SCRAMBLE FOR
Kawaki’s
back. “We’ll have a window on
SURVIVAL: Hawksbill
hatchlings race
hawksbills that was shut tightly before,” he
toward the sea,
says. “I can’t wait to see inside their world.”
where they will
spend most of their
lives. Facing threats
ranging from sharks
to fishing boats, as
few as one hatchling
per thousand survives long enough
to breed.
WHILE HAWKSBILLS ARE ENDANGERED,
it is legal to kill them for subsistence and
ceremony. “Some 85 percent of people in
the Solomons live on a subsistence basis,
and their main resource is the sea,”
MAP: © MAPPING SPECIALISTS, LTD.
PACIFIC OCEAN
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SATELLITE
TRANSMITTER
Attached to the
turtle’s shell with
harmless epoxy, this
transmitter relays
the turtle’s position
to satellites each
time it surfaces.
TAG TEAM
Last summer, Hamilton and local rangers
mounted satellite
tracking tags on 10
hawksbills, the first
of three waves of
turtles that will help
researchers better
understand how
to protect the farranging creatures.
ID TAG
TURTLE #8
A titanium
tag on each
front flipper
bears a unique
identification
number.
Conservancy
scientist Rick
Hamilton’s
team captured
and tagged this
hawksbill turtle
on Sikopo Island
after she laid
188 eggs. Two
weeks after she
was released,
she was killed
by poachers.​
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Hamilton says. “Turtles remain an important food for feasts.
It’s not just for the protein—it’s part of the cultural heritage.”
But awareness is growing that even noncommercial
hunting takes a toll. “We have a lot of other things to eat, like
potatoes and pigs,” says Moira Dasipio of Kia. “Yes, we eat
turtles for ceremony, but now we know turtles are important
to the oceans. We won’t starve if we leave the hawksbills
alone. We need to question ourselves and our traditions.”
Poachers continue to feed the market. Significant numbers
of hawksbills also die far out at sea, tangled in nets or caught
on longline hooks set by commercial fishing boats.
Another threat is mining, which promises desperately
needed revenue for the Solomon Islands but could also harm
hawksbills. The now-closed Gold Ridge mine on Guadalcanal
provided as much as 30 percent of the nation’s gross
domestic product. Last year, however, a toxic waste pond
overflowed, raising fears of habitat damage.
In response to newly proposed mines, TNC helped
organize the Solomon Islands’ first National Mining Forum.
“People need to understand the long-term nature of this
industry and make sure the government and mining companies are accountable from the start,” says TNC’s Melanesia
conservation director, Robyn James. “Otherwise, they will
bear the impacts and not see the benefits.”
The Conservancy is also working to strengthen antipoaching enforcement and develop alternative local livelihoods.
Seaweed harvesting has become profitable for the Wagina community, and the women of KAWAKI are stepping up to manage
ecotourism. Already, cruise ships are stopping by the Arnavons,
and several groups have come to visit turtle nesting beaches.
SIGN OF HOPE
A hawksbill hatchling takes to the sea.
Thanks to the creation of a protected
area and other
conservation measures, the number
of hawksbill nests
in the Arnavons has
doubled over the
past two decades.
ON THE BEACH AT KEREHIKAPA ISLAND, SOME SIX HOURS
after Hamilton’s team mounted the transmitter on Mama
Kawaki, it’s time to set her free. Six women carry her into the
water. When they are waist-deep, skirts floating like petals
around them, they open their hands. Mama Kawaki swims
out of sight as a sweet soprano voice rises, one of the women
improvising a farewell song.
Hamilton’s team tag and release nine more turtles. Two
weeks later, one of the satellite transmitters goes silent. Not
long after, a second stops sending signals.
Back in Brisbane, Hamilton soon gets the news he has
been dreading. One night when rangers were away, poachers
had boated to Sikopo and speared two tagged females nesting
there. To avoid being tracked, the poachers hacked off the
satellite tags and tossed them into the ocean.
“When I first heard, I was so angry and disappointed that
I couldn’t talk about it,” Hamilton says. “It felt like a failure, a
real kick in the gut.”
But the survivors have helped him peer deeper into their
lives. Hamilton was glued to his laptop for months, watching
the turtles’ journeys unfold.
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One tagged hawksbill stayed near the Arnavons. The rest
traveled more than 1,200 miles to the Great Barrier Reef,
swimming more than 30 miles per day. Hamilton says the tags
revealed that once they make it to their destinations, “hawksbills are homebodies, really tightly tied to specific reefs.”
The satellite data have also confirmed that existing
protection strategies are sound. Hawksbills are migrating
between the Arnavons marine conservation area and protected foraging grounds on the Great Barrier Reef, so they’re
spending most of their lives in relatively safe waters.
Still, Hamilton’s research highlights the need for a
broader perspective on hawksbills. “Because of their long
migrations, turtles require international collaboration,”
he says. “If they go to Australia and Papua New Guinea and
the Solomon Islands, we need to reach across the water for
conservation to work.” Last August in Australia, Hamilton
spoke at a workshop that kicked off discussions about
multinational conservation efforts.
But another threat is developing: climate change. Because
trade winds push water into the western Pacific, the sea in the
Solomons is rising at more than double the global average—
and gobbling up the turtles’ nesting beaches. By 2016, five reef
islands in the region had disappeared. Six more are vanishing.
For now, hawksbills may survive simply by finding higher
ground. But “what will happen as their beaches disappear
completely?” Hamilton says. “We just don’t know.”
This is still a perilous time for hawksbills, but the animals
have proven themselves survivors. And with Solomon Islanders taking on an ever-growing role in conservation, Hamilton
says, “I think these animals have a heck of a chance at survival.”
Meanwhile, headstrong Mama Kawaki has become a
mystery. She seems to have laid eggs on Kerehikapa soon
after her release, and she buried another clutch two weeks
later on Sikopo. After that, she began swimming toward the
Great Barrier Reef. On May 26 last year, hers became the
third satellite tag to stop transmitting. By that point, however, she was about 100 miles off the northern Great Barrier
Reef, where poaching is extremely unlikely: Hamilton
believes her tag simply fell off.
Hamilton may never cross paths with Mama Kawaki again,
but he is about to enlist a new cohort of scientific pioneers.
This year, he will return to the Arnavons to tag another 10 turtles, followed by 10 more in 2018. In the meantime, Mama
Kawaki’s seven fellow travelers continue to draw lines on
Hamilton’s map that will help save their kind from extinction.
Jennifer S. Holland is a former National Geographic staff writer. Her book Unlikely
Friendships: Dogs is part of a best-selling series about animal relationships.
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