Illegal Turtle Killing Caught on Film in Flim, Oman

warning: This post contains some bloody scenes of hacked up green turtles and may not be a good idea for those who are easily disturbed by scenes of blood!  Mahoot is a Wilayat of Oman some 4 hours south of Muscat.  Many people don’t know that there is also an island named “Mahoot“.  There are various spellings of this area/island such as “Mahawt” which you can see on the map below.  I thought it would be interesting to check out this island on which I heard they do not even have electricity.  I drove to Flim which is a Bedu village along the coast where people can get a boat ride over to the small island of Mahoot for about 2 rials.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that during low tide it is impossible to boat over and the only option is wading over in knee high mud.  No thanks!

One of the local Bedu ladies gave us instructions on how to at least go to the edge of the shore where we could get some pictures.  Some of the ladies with her told the woman helping us to stop giving us directions and we noticed that they were acting very peculiar.  Something strange seemed to be going on…  When we went behind the desalination plant near the shore, we noticed the following horrific scene:  Someone had recently butchered 2 endangered green turtles, taken their meat and the body parts were still fresh along the coast.  I couldn’t believe it so I took a few pics (and a video) as proof in order to report this SERIOUS crime in Oman if/when I had the chance.  As we drove back past the Bedu women, they circled around my car, leaned into both front windows which were open and began interrogating my Omani friend in the passenger seat.  One woman, who seemed like the leader, seemed to be talking to my friend in a threatening manner through my window, all while holding a deadly looking wooden knife as she talked to him.  Of course I had no idea what was being said and the last thing I wanted to do was some culturally taboo thing as these ladies were all wearing the “owl like masks” that Bedu women tend to wear.  I had never been this close to Bedouin women before and I was surprised at just how NOT shy they were talking so openly with 2 strange men, one being a foreigner!  Sulaiman later explained to me that the conversation went something like this:

Female Bedu mafia leader: Did you see anything down by the water?

Sulaiman: No, just that we couldn’t get to Mahoot Island.

Female Bedu mafia leader: Did you see the turtles? (Different word for “turtles” as Bedouins use vocab that is sometimes quite different from Arabic)

Sulaiman: Yes, it was horrible.

Female Bedu mafia leader: Well, we found them like that.  They must have got caught in a net.  Did you take any pictures?

Sulaiman: No, of course not.  It was too disgusting to even look at!

At that point, the woman called off her gang from around my car and we were given the clearance to proceed.  Hmm….Bizarre situation indeed.  I wonder what they would have done if they had known that I had, in fact, taken photos…That was quite the knife she had in her hand as she leaned into my window…(Here’s the video we took.)