Nesting of leatherbacks in French Guiana and Suriname has been monitored for more than 30 years. Given the documented exchange of tagged females across the nesting beaches, leatherbacks found on the 6 principal nesting areas in French Guiana and Suriname are considered to be a single large nesting population. Despite more than 3 decades of work on this population, this population's status remains unclear. Here we describe the most recently available estimates of various life history parameters and describe the trend of the number of nests laid in the region over the past 36 years. Our analyses suggest that the trend of the whole population in French Guiana and Suriname is stable or slightly increasing over this time period. We strongly urge the continued monitoring of the population by the different research groups in the region so that future data sets will enable an accurate description of the status of this leatherback population.
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Chelonian Conservation and Biology
Vol. 6 • No. 1
May 2007
Vol. 6 • No. 1
May 2007
Dermochelyidae
Dermochelys coriacea
French Guiana
migration
nesting
population
Reptilia