Turtle Farm can sustain discount sale say officials

| 13/01/2011

(CNS): While officials from the Cayman Turtle Farm have claimed that the significant increase in the price of meat was essential to the facility’s survival and future meat production it is continuing on with the Christmas sale prices as it says it can sustain them at present. In a statement released Wednesday afternoon the farm said turtle meat and menavelin would remain at discount prices for those buying in bulk throughout this month. Cayman Turtle Farm Managing Director Tim Adam said, not surprisingly, that the holiday-season price cuts had proven tremendously popular and a decision was made to keep them at discounted levels. He explained that the farm aimed to monitor prices and production levels and reduce the cost of the meat whenever possible.

“Understanding the traditional value and the sentimental place of turtle meat in Cayman culinary traditions, we are happy that we can continue commercial supplies to the community, while simultaneously maintaining our management programmes for green sea turtles,” he said.

Adam said the lower prices would remain in effect at least for the month of January on a first-come, first-served basis.

Prices are now set at $12 per pound for stewing meat and $9 per pound for menavelin. Turtle steak is also discounted to $20.25 per pound. Purchasers are required to buy in 5-pound lots.

The holiday price reductions discounted 2010 increases that had pushed turtle stew from previous long-standing levels of $5.40 per pound to $16, and menavelin from $4 to $12. The price hikes had formed part of efforts to reduce consumption and enable replenishment of the farm’s turtle stocks, the farm had said.

Adam said that the increases through 2010 had assisted in the management of the 8,000-member herd because of a drop in demand and as a result supplies remained sustainable. “To maintain supplies at sustainable levels, we need to continue careful management, and we think that, by and large, the community both understands and supports our efforts,” he said.

“We will monitor demand at these new prices to determine what further price adjustments may be necessary from time to time. Our intention is to adjust prices periodically so as to better balance demand against the sustainable amount we can supply. That will give us the best opportunity to continue providing turtle meat to our valued customers in the Cayman Islands,” he said.

 

 

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  1. Anonymous says:

    400 lb wild turtle equals what in dollars?  Looks like several thousand between steaks and the shell and the other pieces.  You better put a guard on each of the wild nesters because the people robbing laundromats are going to figure this out.

  2. expat weirdo says:

    And to think this island 100s of years ago was known through out the Caribbean as Turtle Island.

    Since living here I have seen 4 in the wild. I guess that’s what happens when you indiscriminately eat every animal in sight.

    And here the turtle farm tries to feed propaganda that it’s actually helping the situation.

     

     

  3. Turtle's Head says:

    Host "Welcome to the Cayman Turtle Farm.  Here we are seeking to protect this endangered species"

    Tourist "Why are they endangered?"

    Host "My forefathers ate them."

    Tourist "Really?"

    Host "We still eat them"

    Tourist "What?"

    Host "It is our culture and heritage"

    Tourist "Like the Spanish watching bulls get slaughtered"

    Host "Well, yes"

    Tourist "Like the Chinese having Rhino’s slaughtered to powder their horns?"

    Host "Well yes.  Of course the bullfighting and rhino poaching is wrong.  But we are special and different"

     

  4. GR says:

     This is most probably more beneficial to sustaining the wild turtle population than the 8 or so turtles the Turtle Farm releases a year.  Lower turtle meat prices should mean that there is less to gain from poaching wild turtles.  

  5. Leave them alone says:

    Leave the turtles alone. There is no justification for eating them. Raise them and free them, but for heaven’s sake, stop eating them. It’s like killing for killing’s sake. So you have to kill turtles so you can have a "national" (shame) dish?

    What is wrong with cows, chicken, fish and pigs, none of which are endangered?

  6. noname says:

    I’ll stick to a nice big slab of cow thanks. Preferably wrapped in a sliver of pig.

  7. Green Mango says:

    So, have we now established that the Farm could simply control their stocks by controlling how much they butcher, without having to reduce demand by raising the price. The tail doesn’t need to wag the dog. (However, increasing the price was a good idea, since they need the cash and people will pay for it. But that’s a different, economic, argument. And maybe a poaching argument. But its not a stock management one.)

  8. Anonymous says:

    Is THIS news? ..should be kept hushed if CITES is a concern. 

    It’s gross tasting anyway — though I do love the steaks 

    • Anonymous says:

      Make up your mind, is it steakes or stew, it is all turtle meat and does not taste gross.

  9. Beachboi says:

    Great news for the restaurants but not for the patrons!!!  I bought a stew turtle dinner over the holidays from a popular George Town restaurant and it was $20.00!!!    It was what……about 2 spoon fulls of meat??  I asked if I could pay for a little extra and they said that it would be another $20.00.  I wish I had had the will power to tell them to keep the whole thing!!  The words "discount" and "Cayman" are not compatible at all any more…………

  10. Anonymous says:

    ‘cayman sells endanger species meat at discounted rates’…..zzzzzz

    alice in wonderland stuff….

    • Truthseeker says:

      "Online poster ignores reality of "farm raised" produce and sticks with an unhelpful broadbrush approach to the consumption of turtle meat, a traditional Cayman food"  ……. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

      White Rabbit, 

       Look down another hole!