Jumeirah Group’s Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project has today released a batch of 14 endangered Green, Hawksbill and Loggerhead sea turtles from its Jumeirah Al Naseem beach.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Unfortunately, the biggest threat to turtles are human beings.
00:03Whether it's plastic ingestion, entanglement, or boat strikes,
00:08we're the biggest risk to these beautiful animals.
00:12By raising awareness, by letting people know what they can do to protect them,
00:15is an important step to take.
00:17And we're thrilled that with the support of Jumeirah and the team,
00:21we can get that message out to make sure that we protect all marine life here in the UAE.
00:27Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project
00:29So Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project was established by Jumeirah Group in 2004
00:33to help rehabilitate turtles here in the pools around Nassim
00:37and obviously the seven-star turtle center in Burj Al Arab with the aquarium.
00:42Thanks to the team of Burj Al Arab,
00:45they've saved 2,000 turtles and released them back into the wild.
00:49We track them, we try to get as much information as possible.
00:53Me personally, I've been involved in having saved two turtles in the last year.
00:57It's been an absolute honor and pleasure to be able to work with them.
01:01The story of Farah is an emotional one.
01:03I was freediving off an island called Sir Bunair
01:06and unfortunately found Farah caught up in discarded fishing wire.
01:10So I swam down about seven meters where I found her and brought her to the surface.
01:14And as I brought her up about a meter before the surface, I felt the tug and I saw the fishing line.
01:19So we cut it away, got as much of the fishing line away as possible.
01:24And luckily for the seven-star treatment at Burj Al Arab,
01:26she was rehabilitated over the last nine months and we've been fortunate enough now to release her today.
01:31It's tough to say goodbye to a turtle that I've gotten to know over the last nine months,
01:37but at the same time it's so wonderful to see that thanks to the work of Jumeirah Group
01:42and the Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project,
01:45she's fit, she can swim even with one flipper and she gets to go back to where she belongs.
01:54The initiative started in 2004 when the Wildlife Protection Office realized that there is no facilities,
02:00there is a need for facilities to rehabilitate sea turtles.
02:03And the project is run by Jumeirah Group in both Burj Al Arab and Jumeirah Al Nasim hotels.
02:12We count with the support of the Dubai Falcon Clinic for the veterinary care
02:16and the CBRL for the laboratory work and post-mortem research.
02:23The project consists of three phases.
02:26The rescue part of the project is done by the general public and some environmental authorities
02:31that gives us a call and brings us animals in.
02:34Normally the animals are either sick or injured and then as a consequence of their illness,
02:39they get a lot of barnacles growing on them as well.
02:41It is very important for the public to know not to remove the barnacles
02:44because you can actually damage the animal.
02:47Then the animals are brought to us.
02:49We have the critical care facilities in Burj Al Arab in the back of house of the aquariums there
02:53and when the animals get better we bring them to Jumeirah Al Nasim Turtle Lagoons
02:57where we can monitor the last stages of the rehabilitation
03:00to make sure that the animals are strong and healthy before they go back into their natural environment.
03:06We normally have mainly Hawksbill and Green Turtles.
03:10Occasionally we also do have Loggerheads and Olive Ridley Turtles.
03:13All the sea turtles in the world are in danger with extinction
03:16and every single animal we save is a very important milestone in what we do
03:20because also these are migratory species and whatever we do here has a global impact.
03:26Today we had 11 juvenile turtles.
03:31Well, 10 juvenile and one medium-sized turtle.
03:33A mix of Hawksbill and Green Turtles.
03:35And then we had three adult turtles.
03:37We had a female turtle called Farah that Sheikh Fahim Al Hasimi named
03:42because he rescued her.
03:44We had a very big male named Jumeirah.
03:47He is around 90 kilograms of weight.
03:50And then we have a Loggerhead, a female Loggerhead Turtle
03:53that was named through our social media contest NACAR, which means the Mother of Pearl.
03:57They were fitted today with satellite transmitters which are courtesy of His Highness Sheikh Fahim.
04:02That really helps us understanding the success of the rehabilitation project
04:06because we get to know that the animals are doing fine and we get to follow them on their travel.
04:11And also we get to understand a little bit more about their complex biology
04:16and what areas they go to.
04:18We had one turtle tracked in the past that travelled all the way from Fujairah to Thailand.
04:24That's 8,600 kilometres in nine months.
04:27So that really tells you what is the impact of the project.
04:30It's really transboundary impact at a global scale.
04:33We're launching the toll-free number in coordination with Sheikh Fahim,
04:38which is 800 turtles, so that we make it very easy for anyone that finds a sea turtle
04:42that is injured or stranded on the beach to just give us a call and we can help.
04:54For more UN videos visit www.un.org