GBOSANGE- LEATHERBACK TURTLE

Where I worked, until February, 2014, there was a colleague in the office. He was head of registry. His name is Mr. Bulley. Gbosange was his catchword. When we were going to have a document copied, when we got to his office we greet him with the catchword gbosange. He cheerfully and energetically responds, Gbosange! Elsewhere in the office when one meets him, gbosange was the recurring word. It is pronounced gboy-sang-gay. The stress and force is on the gbo.

I liked the catchword but did not know its meaning then. I did not bother to know. However, more than one year after I had left the office, I got to know the meaning of the catchword.

GETTING THE MEANING

I attended annual general meeting of Databank Group on July 22, 2015. Databank Group is a mutual fund company in Ghana.  I have invested in two of their funds i.e. Epack and Mfund. The annual general meeting was for four funds. I was to attend two of them. The first meeting was for Mfund and the fourth and last one was for Epack. After the first meeting, I had to pass time till the fourth meeting started. I decided to take a walk. The annual general meeting took place at the Accra Conference Centre, opposite Parliament House. It was during this walk that I got to know the meaning of the word gbosange. It is the name of an animal. It is the Ga name for Leatherback Turtle! Ga is the language of an ethnic group in Ghana, West Africa. The person from that group is a Ga; as a group they are Gas. They mainly occupy a patch of the coastal area on the Gulf of Guinea in Ghana.

From the Accra Conference Centre, I turn left towards the Ridge Church School (an upscale pre-SSS school in Ghana), and proceeded to connect to the Liberia Avenue, I went up farther around the British Council Library. On my return to the Accra Conference Centre, when I was crossing the Independence Avenue, from the Barclays Bank side of the road to the Children’s Park side, a sign stared me fixedly in the face. The title of the sign was Leatherback Turtle. I was curious. Why was it called Leatherback Turtle? Because of my curiosity and the fact that I run a blog on natural environment, I was drawn to the sign. It was from the sign I learnt that the Ga name for Leatherback Turtle is Gbosange. Part of the Children’s Park has been carved into an office for the Ghana Wildlife Society (Accra Conservation Education Centre), close to the Liberation Circle. It was on the fence of the office that the sign has been stuck; there were other wildlife signs too.

Growing up as a Ga, my impression was that the one Ga name for all turtles was Hala (pronounced hah- lah). I couldn’t be more wrong. Hala is the Ga name for the green turtle only. I came to this realization on July 22, 2015!

So now there are two gbosanges, so to speak, one a catchword, and the other a turtle.

PROFILE

From this point forward I will dwell mainly on Gbosange the turtle. It got its common name from the nature of its shell. Its shell is not as hard as those of other turtles; it is leather like. It is mobile, crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It feeds mainly on large amounts of jellyfish, thereby helping to keep their population (jellyfish) in check. 

Common Name: Leatherback Turtle

Scientific Name: Dermochelys coriacea

Local Name (Ghanaian Languages):

Tormeklo (Ewe)

Gbosange(Ga)

Epuhuru (Fante)

Anwa (Nzema)

Weight: 400- 900kg

Length: 55-63 inches

Major Habitat: Beaches, dunes and deep oceans.

Major Threats: Fishing by-catch, habitat degradation and hunting.

IUCN Category: Globally it is listed as vulnerable, but in many subpopulations (Pacific and Southwest Atlantic) it is listed as Critically Endangered (CR).

Social-cultural significance: Source of important ingredient in the pharmaceutical industry.

Interesting Facts:

It lays clutches of 80-100 eggs yearly.

It is the largest of all the turtles on earth.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

The sad thing about Gbosange is that it is an endangered species.

Their population is reducing because of destruction of habitat, hunting and fishing bycatch. In Ghana, for example, winning of sand at the beaches is destroying their habitat. Egg collection in South East Asia is destroying their habitat. In fact this has led to the local extinction of the leatherback in Malaysia.

Estimates indicate that 26,000 to 43,000 females nest annually worldwide which is a dramatic reduction from 115,000 estimated in 1980.

If you bought yoghurt, and after taking it you carelessly drop the sachet, and the wind blows it into a gutter, and water in the gutter carries it into the sea, there is every possibility that Gbosange could swallow the plastic sachet. If it does, there could be digestion complications leading to death. It is actually happening to creatures in the sea.

REVERSAL AND PRESERVATION

The WWF, for example, is doing the following intervention:

• Working with local communities to reduce the consumption of leatherback meat and egg.
• Training local rangers to protect the leatherback turtle from poachers.
• Advocacy for turtle-friendly hooks for fishing.
• Fitting leatherback turtles with transmitters to track their movements, and hopefully reduce their bycatch mortality.

RALLYING CRY 

Let us now use gbosange the catchword as rallying cry to save Gbosange the Leatherback Turtle from extinction. The sixth mass extinction is ongoing. It is said to be different from the others in that it is caused by human activities (you may read my post titled “Life on the Brink-6th Mass Extinction” dated July 26, 2015 for more information on it).

GBOSANGE!!

Source:

worldwildlife.org/species/leatherback-turtle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle