The Hawksbill Turtle

The hawksbill turtle occurs in tropical and subtropical seas of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. In the Americas, hawksbills emerge in the east Pacific from the United States to Peru, and in the west Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Brazil.
The hawksbill turtle is a medium-sized marine turtle, usually less than a meter long and weighing 40-60 kg. The shell is thin, flexible and highly coloured with elaborate patterns. As the English name suggests, the hawksbill has a narrow pointed beak reminiscent of a bird of prey.
Hawksbill turtles are mainly carnivorous and use their narrow beaks to extract invertebrate prey from crevices on the reef. Both sessile and mobile animals are eaten and hawksbills appear to be opportunistic predators, although sponges normally constitute a major proportion of their diet.
Nesting occurs widely throughout the range, but tends to be more dispersed than in other species. There are seldom more than a few hundred nests on a single beach, and few major colonial nesting beaches. It has been suggested that this is simply a result of centuries of over-exploitation. The hawksbill appears to nest every two to three years and lays 60 to 200 eggs at a time. The 6 month nesting season of the hawksbill is longer than that of other sea turtles. Year-round nesting has been recorded in some localities. Nesting occurs between July and October and courtship and mating begin somewhat earlier. The nesting behaviour follows a general sequence of that of other species of sea turtles: emergence from the sea, site selection, site clearing and pit construction, egg chamber construction, egg laying, filling in the egg chamber, disguising the nest site, and returning to sea. The entire process takes about 1 to 3 hours.

In the past, the hawksbill was thought be less migratory than the other species of marine turtle. However, more recent work involving satellite telemetry has revealed that the hawksbill does make long distance migrations. It is likely they use completely different areas for feeding and breeding.
The carapace of the hawksbill is unusual amongst the marine turtles as the scutes (the hard, bony plates that constitute the shell) are overlapping. These are often streaked and marbled with amber, yellow or brown, most evident when the shell material is worked and polished.

Hawksbills face most of the same threats that endanger all marine turtles. Sadly, they are also singled out for their own special threat: humans find their shells (bekko) highly attractive. Although the full extent of the threat is not known, experts believe that the killing of hawksbills for bekko is a major problem. Japanese imports of raw bekko between 1970 and 1989 totalled 713,850 kg, representing more than 670,000 turtles; more than half the imports originated in the Caribbean and Latin America.