A new UK report told the Bermuda Government of the urgent need to conserve turtles around the Island?s waters.

The international research project is known as Turtles in the Caribbean Overseas Territories (TCOT).

TCOT said turtles were killed by boat propellers, the loss of turtle grass, getting tangled up in fishing nets and by swallowing trash thrown in the water.

However, it did recommend continued monitoring of the turtle population and ensuring the Department of Environmental Protection continued to have the necessary resources to do so.

TCOT said that there were no nesting turtle species left in Bermuda and urgent action was required to preserve the population that was left.

?TCOT recommends that the Government of Bermuda continue to take all necessary steps to ensure the sustained existence of populations of marine turtles in Bermuda and facilitate their recovery. Bermuda appears to have lost its nesting populations, but still hosts significant foraging aggregations of juvenile turtles, especially green turtles,? TCOT said.

After surveying local fishermen, TCOT said that ?current management is resulting in a population increase of the green turtle?.

TCOT?s summary of Bermuda?s turtle population was that ?the nesting marine turtle populations that once used the beaches of Bermuda are now extinct. Currently, large numbers of juvenile green turtles are found in Bermuda?s waters along with a smaller number of hawksbill turtles. Loggerheads and leatherbacks rarely visit Bermuda?s waters... A long-term green turtle monitoring project has been in operation in Bermuda for over 30 years and has produced valuable data on population structure, migrations,genetic identity and habitat use... Although most species are generally perceived to have decreased in the long term, in the last five years the green turtle populations are generally perceived to have increased.

?Although formerly the site of a marine turtle fishery, turtles are no longer subject to direct harvest in Bermuda, although boat strikes, fatalities due to marine debris, incidental capture in marine fisheries and loss of sea grass habitat are considered threats to Bermuda?s sea turtles worthy of further investigation?.

TCOT took three years to produce the report which was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs in the UK.

It was coordinated by the University of Exeter and project partners in Angilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos.

The final report on Bermuda can be downloaded at: www.seaturtle.org/mtrg/projects/tcot/finalreport/section5.pdf