Endangered sea turtles hatch on Brazil's deserted beaches
Coronavirus keeps crowds that usually greet hatching of hawksbill turtles away
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Sun 29 Mar 2020
Nearly 100 critically endangered sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil, their first steps going almost unnoticed because of coronavirus restrictions that prohibit people from gathering on the region’s sands.
The 97 hawksbill sea turtles, or tartarugas-de-pente as they are known in Brazil, hatched last Sunday in Paulista, a town in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco.
Photographs taken by government workers, the only people to witness the event, showed the tiny creatures making their way down the beach and into the Atlantic waves.
Locals have been forbidden from gathering on Pernambuco’s spectacular shoreline since last weekend, when the state governor, Paulo Câmara, ordered a partial shutdown and urged residents to stay indoors to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Bolsonaro threatens to sack health minister over coronavirus criticism
Speaking to the Guardian last week, Câmara said such measures – which the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has actively undermined – were vital if Brazil were to avoid a crisis similar to the one that has taken hold in Europe. “Only isolation will stop the curve growing at the speed it is growing in other places,” he said.
Câmara said the government of Pernambuco, which has so far confirmed 68 Covid-19 cases and five deaths, was racing against time to make hospital beds available for patients.
“All of our efforts are now geared towards delaying its profileration … [so that] when this curve grows, and it will grow, we are as ready as we possibly can be to care for people,” he said.
According to Brazil’s Tamar conservation project, which protects sea turtles, hawksbills lay their eggs along the country’s north-eastern coast and are considered a critically endangered species.
Read on: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/newborn-endangered-sea-turtles-throng-brazils-deserted-beaches
Coronavirus keeps crowds that usually greet hatching of hawksbill turtles away
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Sun 29 Mar 2020
Nearly 100 critically endangered sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil, their first steps going almost unnoticed because of coronavirus restrictions that prohibit people from gathering on the region’s sands.
The 97 hawksbill sea turtles, or tartarugas-de-pente as they are known in Brazil, hatched last Sunday in Paulista, a town in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco.
Photographs taken by government workers, the only people to witness the event, showed the tiny creatures making their way down the beach and into the Atlantic waves.
Locals have been forbidden from gathering on Pernambuco’s spectacular shoreline since last weekend, when the state governor, Paulo Câmara, ordered a partial shutdown and urged residents to stay indoors to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Bolsonaro threatens to sack health minister over coronavirus criticism
Speaking to the Guardian last week, Câmara said such measures – which the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has actively undermined – were vital if Brazil were to avoid a crisis similar to the one that has taken hold in Europe. “Only isolation will stop the curve growing at the speed it is growing in other places,” he said.
Câmara said the government of Pernambuco, which has so far confirmed 68 Covid-19 cases and five deaths, was racing against time to make hospital beds available for patients.
“All of our efforts are now geared towards delaying its profileration … [so that] when this curve grows, and it will grow, we are as ready as we possibly can be to care for people,” he said.
According to Brazil’s Tamar conservation project, which protects sea turtles, hawksbills lay their eggs along the country’s north-eastern coast and are considered a critically endangered species.
Read on: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/newborn-endangered-sea-turtles-throng-brazils-deserted-beaches
