In a joint effort, Royal Navy sailors removed a significant amount of dangerous plastic waste from a turtle nesting site on the Caribbean island of Curaçao.
Portsmouth-based HMS Dauntless, currently patrolling the Caribbean to curb drug smuggling with the US Coast Guard, took the initiative during its deployment.
During a logistics stopover on the Dutch island, fifty sailors from the Type 45 destroyer partnered with Sea Turtle Conservation Curaçao. They successfully cleared over 200kg of ocean plastic from a key nesting beach.
Additionally, they participated in medical checks for the local turtle population.
Able Seaman Megan Page, a member of the Royal Navy’s Hydrography and Meteorology Branch, commented on the initiative. She stated, “The environment is very important to the Royal Navy and, with the growing impact of climate change, we are here today to conduct a beach clean-up.”
Emphasising the Navy’s collaborative efforts, Page added, “It is important to be able to work with local organisations as part of this deployment to understand the challenges faced by marine life and support where we can.”
The hazards of ocean plastics to marine life, especially turtles, are well-documented. Turtles often confuse plastic debris with food, leading to ingestion that results in grievous internal injuries.
Furthermore, entanglement in discarded fishing nets and other plastic detritus poses life-threatening risks for these marine creatures.
Whilst this RN action to remove beach plastic, so the turtles can safely return and breed is entirely laudable, one wonders why one of our precious area air defence assets is swanning round the Caribbean looking for drug smugglers – and not training with HMS Prince of Wales
It’s actually been a canny bit of scheduling. HMS Dauntless has deployed somewhere hot to fully test her engines after the PIP upgrade whilst also covering the region as the resident patrol ship HMS Medway in turn covers The Falklands so HMS Forth can receive some maintenance. She’s then scheduled to meet up with HMS Prince of Wales when she deploys to the US east coast in the autumn. Agree that the optics of having a large/expensive destroyer trundling around the Caribbean intercepting drug skiffs and clearing up plastic isn’t great but it’s a one off and makes the best… Read more »
Ah, many thanks CH. There had to be a good reason and that explains it.
Incidentally, I spent a long weekend once camping on the Antiguan island of Barbuda and saw many turtles coming up the beach to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, some twat has left a half built hotel resort on that exact same spot and I guess the unfortunate turtles will have to find somewhere else to lay their eggs
Agreed. As always, us humans wreck things for nature by our greed.
Lol, i actually know the “twat”
It is also a nice cruise for the crew? The might learn things and have a good time too? And this appears to be a really good opportunity to do a really good PiP test, to kill that story once and for all, and have a very strong presence that can get the the Falklands quite quickly then it actually makes a lot of strategic sense as well. Crew do earn a bit of shore leave and/or non military tasking to support communities and if they want to spend it somewhere nice doing something they care about that is really… Read more »
Hi SB, Retention was my first thought when I read the article. To me people are the most important asset the services have, as I am sure most would agree. If the only thing these powerful assets do was run around facing off with the Russians or Chinese all the time I suspect that the continuous high pressure grind would wear on many a soul. I would have thought that there will be quite a lot of young first time to sea people on board given she has just re-commissioned (that’s not the right word is it?) and giving them… Read more »
Indeed the RN by the nature of the job has the hardest deployment schedule of all the services on people’s family lives so it needs to have something to offer with that and the chance to visit so really brilliant places and do interesting stuff is the payoff for spending shed loads of time in steel box out to sea and away from friends and family…..without that the RN would be a very hard sell over the RAF for people who want to join up…who after all generally get to spend most of their time in the same place with… Read more »
David: I was living in Key West , where the JIATF(S) is based and they have there an AMAZING cross section of Allies from North America, to Central America to South America and of course France, Spain, Portugal and ourselves. All of which adds up to “flying the Flag”. In addition the waters around there have been very warm, even hot. So a few months testing all the upgrades is indeed a beneficial plan. Plus it is “tropical event”season at present and we all keep at least one eye on the weather at this time of year.
I was a little disappointed they were not providing air cover for the turles as they made ghe run across the beach
hahahahaha! I spilled my coffee.!!!
Nice to see! I have ahead been a supporter of using some Light Infantry Battalion’s from the UK, formed in Coy groups, to support and keep safe some of the many wildlife reserves in Africa. I mean resources won’t allow it to happen now, but form Coy groups to operate in support of the various rangers, keeping valuable and rare animals safe. Live enemy with weapons (poachers) also good training value at all levels, decent trip abroad for the people involved and a decent reason for being. The use of light helicopters, recce assets, loggies, medics, just could never see… Read more »
Totally behind this idea. Kill the lot of them.
Steady on old chap, thats a bit gung-ho, what?
LOL
Not at all. I love animals more, kill all of the poachers who set foot there. I think it’s a great idea and all nations should contribute.
Agreed mate.
Wasn’t one of our blokes killed by an elephant a while back helping out the locals against the poachers?
Excellent. As with the turtle episode, the publicity is good, the cause is non partisan and the flag is flown in a good way far from home. That second stripe is in the post!
Second stripe sent recorded delivery I hope, I’ve waited 30 years for it!
Very Commendable effort on the part of the RN. Well done. Question though – how is the collection of this plastic debris related to climate change?
We want to know the real answers to the questions of: how many sailors tried to kiss a turtle, top 5 turtle jokes made by the crew, how many condoms were found on the beach, how many sailors pulled a local and finally who drank the most.
Its not a very much reported on part of deployments, all the other stuff you do that doesn’t involve stuff going Whoosh or Bang and looking ally.
Ships I have been on were involved with.
Orphanage in HCM City Viet Nam.
Blind School in Sierra Leonne
Numerous UK ICU and Maternity units
Assisting in demo ops for a harbour on Tristan De Cuna
Beach clean ups various
Its Always good to get off the ship and away from the first bar outside the dockyard gate. You meet some remarkably interesting people and with luck get gripo’s as well.
Exactly. When I were a lad the motto was “Join the Army and See the World” and to a certain extent thats still true – at least for the Navy anyway
I wonder how much we will have to shell out for this little escapade….