Thousands of leatherback turtle eggs and hatchlings have been reportedly crushed by heavy machinery along a Trinidad beach.
The place was widely regarded as the world's densest nesting area for the biggest of all living sea turtles, conservationist said Monday.
Tourists from across globe visit Trinidad to watch the turtles lay eggs.
As part of Government work, bulldozers were redirecting the Grand Riviere, a shifting river that was threatening a hotel where tourists from around the globe come to watch the huge endangered turtles lay their eggs.
But several conservationists who monitor turtle populations say the bulldozers dig up an unnecessarily large part of nesting beach in the tiny coastal town on Trinidad's northern shore.
Sherwin Reyz, a member of the Grand Riviere Environmental Organisation, estimated that as many as 20,000 eggs were crushed.
"They had a very good meal. I was near tears," said Reyz, who helped save hundreds of uninjured hatchlings dredged up by the heavy machinery. "It was a disgusting mess."
Leatherback turtles can grow to more than 7-feet long, weigh up to a ton, and can live to 100 years. They return to lay their eggs on the beach of their birth.
The nesting ground of Grand Riviere is so popular with the globally endangered species that nest-digging females sometimes accidentally dig up others' eggs.
The hotelier, who had been pressing Trinidad's government for months to redirect the Grand Riviere, was also shocked and dismayed by the end result.
"For some reason they dug up the far end of the beach, absolutely encroaching into the good nesting areas," Italian hotelier Piero Guerrini told The Guardian. "This could have been avoided with a much wiser approach. But it was done too late and it was done in the wrong way."
Many tourists who had come to see the turtles lay eggs saw injured hatchlings dying in front of their eyes as bulldozers shifted the mouth of the river.
"This really put a lot of bad images in people's minds," Guerrini told The Guardian
Leatherbacks lay about 85 eggs at a time, but less than 1 percent survives to adulthood.
For years, successful conservation efforts have benefited leatherbacks in Trinidad, which outlawed the slaughter of the sea turtles in 1966. A growing number of turtle advocates have helped protect the traditional nesting grounds, but the current incident has caused a big public relations scandal.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
