Cayman Islands sea turtle tourist trap is, surprise, not so good to turtles
Photo Credit: A patron of the Turtle Farm poses with a sea turtle. Flickr / Victor Martinez
Skift Take
The desire to get up close and personal with wildlife often results in bizarre encounters like this where visitors pose with the creatures, toss them back in the holding pens, then go eat one of their cousins in a nearby cafeteria.
Before you see the turtles at the Cayman Turtle Farm on Grand Cayman, you hear them.
The whoosh of breath when they breach the surface in their concrete pools resounds throughout the world’s only sea-turtle farm. That, and the squeals of tourists, who mingle freely with these endangered creatures.
“It should be a happy place, but what you hear is the noise of turtles gasping for air,” said Elizabeth Hogan, the campaign manager for oceans and wildlife of the World Society for the Protection of Animals.
The animal-welfare group spent a year surreptitiously investigating the facility, documenting unsanitary conditions, diseased and injured turtles, cruelty and neglect.
According to their report, the hundreds of sea turtles are packed into crowded pools rife with salmonella, E. coli and other bacteria associated with pathogens dangerous to the turtles and the people who handle them.
The turtle farm, a government-run facility, dismissed the allegations but agreed to ins
