There is an urgent need to save sea turtles in Kuwait as their numbers have been dwindling precipitously in the past few decades, said a Kuwaiti participant in a seminar held here on Tuesday.
In a speech at the seminar, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) director Dr. Naji Al-Mutairi said the seminar, lasting two days, was put together with inputs from a variety of local, regional, and international institutes and organizations.
Fundamentally, the seminar, sponsored in a great part by KISR, would focus on seeking tangible solutions for the protection of sea turtles in the waters of Kuwait,, he said, noting that five types of these turtles have been monitored in these waters.
The seminar would also promote the instigation of cooperative agreements among regional states to protect the population of turtles in the waters of the Gulf, he said.
Seminar moderator and KISR researcher Amani Al-Yaqout stressed the notion that the seminar aimed at learning first hand from wildlife specialists the best ways that could be adopted in the preservation and protection of the habitat of sea turtles in Kuwait with the ultimate objective of increasing their numbers or at least halting the diminution of these numbers.
Another speaker at the opening of the seminar today was Mijbil Al-Mutawa'a, director of Kuwait's Scientific Center, who sounded the alarm about the plight of sea turtles in Kuwait's waterways, noting that the turtles' habitats were being compromised by human interference. For example, he said, boats and jet skies routinely would ram into and crush the turtles. Moreover, numerous turtles, finding plastic bags in the water, would often try to ingest them leading to their being choked by them, he said.
He emphasized that the Center he was working for had shown great interest in the plight of the turtles so much so that it conducted a study on them in their natural habitat for two and a half years, from which much was learned about the behavior of these wonderful aquatic animals.