sea turtle conservation
Sea turtles – our flagship species
Bahari Hai is privileged to have an incredibly experienced team in turtle conservation. Some of our team members have over two decades experience in operating turtle conservation programmes in line with global best practices.
Our programmes include our own team operating turtle conservation programmes, 365 days and nights per year. Working in close collaboration with Kenya Wildlife Service and our partners. We also help sharing our knowledge and experience through training, capacity development and ongoing technical support of other turtle conservation groups and individuals.
Sea turtles are not just amazing animals. They are also an indicator species for ocean health. Maybe we’re a little biased, but we think its only fair that sea turtles are the flagship species for the ocean, and hence for Bahari Hai.
nest monitoring & protection
We have two core nest monitoring programmes. We operate an Index Nest Monitoring Beach within the Watamu Marine Protected Area. This is our primary area of work and is also home to Bahari Hai’s learning centre.
The second programme is directly supporting sea turtle conservationists with patrols along the Malindi-Ungwana Bay area, north coast Kenya
bycatch mitigation
Fishing bycatch is a major threat to sea turtles – not just in Kenya, but all over the world!
We mitigate turtle bycatch by addressing the root causes of turtle bycatch i.e. illegal and destructive fishing gears and the fishing behaviours.
Our primary interventions here are: working with key stakeholders to remove destructive fishing gears; working with fisherman to not target sea turtles; fish in key sea turtle foraging sites; working closely with law enforcement and community and fisher groups for compliance of bylaws.
Photo Identification
Photo Identification is a non-invasive technique used to identify individual animals in a population – and track them over time – from natural marks on the body. For sea turtles, it relies on capturing photographs of the unique patterns of scales on the animal’s face. The great thing about this programme is that others can easily contribute to – submit your photos and be the citizen scientist you always wanted to be!
training & capacity development
We are fortunate to have deeply passionate and experienced sea turtle conservation specialists on our team. It is also a deep belief of Bahari Hai that knowledge should be shared and if we are to have a sustainable turtle conservation sector, people and teams must be sufficiently capacity built so they are not dependent on others and will ensure turtle conservation activities are conducted in line with global best practices.
