WHEN INDIAN Ocean Line's (IOL) multi-purpose vessel Brandenburg sailed from Durban last Sunday she was carrying a very special cargo - two live female Loggerhead turtles.
Crew of the Brandenburg manufactured special crates on deck for the two VIPs (or should that be VITs?), with a tarpaulin cover to ward off the hot summer sun. Oh, and a full-time attendant, courtesy of the KwaZulu Natal Conservation Board, to make sure their dietary and other needs were met.
The turtles were captured at St Lucia on the northern KZN coast and will be released into the Indian Ocean when the ship passes the Maldives Islands. Each has expensive radio equipment glued to its shell and will be scanned and tracked by satellite to assist scientists with understanding their wanderings and breeding habits. It is believed that turtles usually return to the same beach to lay their eggs.
Last year IOL delivered another pair of loggerheads to two separate points, one off Madagascar and the other near Reunion.
The test has been so successful that it was decided to take another two even further from South Africa before releasing them. The monitoring is being undertaken as a joint venture between the KZN Conservation Board and the Department of Biology of the Italian University of Piza.
The Brandenburg regularly works between Durban, Port Louis, Colombo, Male, Mumbai as well as the Gulf on inducement.
By Terry Hutson
