Monitoramento reprodutivo de tartarugas marinhas na praia de Urussuquara/ES após o rompimento da barragem do Fundão em Mariana/MG

On November 5, 2015, the rupture occurred of the Fundao dam of the mining company Samarco, located in the sub-district of Bento Rodrigues-MG, 35 km from the center of the Brazilian municipality of Mariana-MG, approximately 16.000 Olympic pools of mining residue circulated through the district of Bento Rodrigues in a period of only 11 minutes. The plume of this environmental impact, extended approximately 800 km in the Rio Doce basin, between Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo. The Ipiranga river, located between Linhares-ES and Sao Mateus-ES, was one of the last sites affected by the waste from the Doce river basin, having contact with the sea in the Urussuquara-ES restinga, a place that is a nursery of sea turtles. A total of 23 nests were surveyed with homogeneous distribution along the coast, the species with the greatest abundance of records was Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus, 1758) with 17 nests, followed by the species Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758) with 5 nests, followed by the species Dermochelys coriacea (Linnaeus, 1766) with 1 raised nest. Therefore, Urussuquara beach should be considered as a priority locus of mundial importance for the protection and conservation of sea turtles.