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Geraldine Panapasa
MARINE conservationists are pleading for people living along the Coral Coast to spare the life of Lady Nakalou.
The green turtle's movement is being tracked by the World Wildlife Fund as she travels through Fiji's waters.
WWF South Pacific Program marine species program coordinator Penina Solomona said Lady Nakalou was special and expressed concern after she was located by satellite close to the coastline in Sigatoka.
Early this month, about 22 participants from the coasts of Bua and Macuata went to Nakalou Village and took part in the Daunivonu, a turtle monitors' conservation and tagging workshop.
The highlight of the exercise was tagging the turtles and the appointment of 22 turtle monitors whose role will be to gather accurate information on turtles.
"We've been successful transmitting signals from the satellite tag attached to her back," said Ms Solomona.
"Transmission shows she is quite close to the coastline. She moved away from Wailoaloa Beach and has been following the coastline to Sigatoka.
"The area she's swimming around is quite accessible to people so we are trying to raise awareness that if people do come across her to leave her be."
Ms Solomona said they hoped to track her migration for at least six months.
She said it would be interesting to see her movements through the satellite tag.
"Lady Nakalou came from Nakalou Village in Vanua Levu. The general thinking is she will go back there," she said.
"It could be that she just comes to Fiji to nest and moves to other Pacific Island countries to feed.
"In some cases, turtles from Tahiti come to Fiji to feed so we're also exploring that as a possibility."
She said awareness programs on the low number of turtles globally are ongoing.
She said WWF and the Daunivonu network on Vanua Levu would work closely with concerned conservation partners to enforce regulations about marine turtles.
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