Hawksbill Sea Turtle

Photo: Kevin Bryant · CC BY-NC-SA

Hawksbill turtles around Ile à Vache feed actively on sponges throughout the day, their narrow beaks precisely extracting tissue from reef crevices. The island's lack of tourism infrastructure has left the turtles remarkably undisturbed, and they continue their foraging even when divers approach within a few metres — a rare behavioural trait that signals genuine habituation rather than learned tolerance of feeding stations.