Baros Maldives is a small exclusive coral island in the Indian Ocean ringed by a sun-kissed beach and a vibrant house-reef, just 20 minutes by speedboat from Maldives International Airport. It is a multi award-winning boutique luxury resort with a long history of outstanding service excellence.

(TRAVPR.COM) MALDIVES - June 29th, 2013 - A programme to identify turtles has been started at Baros Maldives, the award-winning boutique luxury resort in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives.

Baros, set in the centre of North Male’ Atoll, just 20 minutes by speed boat from the international airport, is ringed by a house reef that is home to many varieties of fish, as well as to several turtles. For the past few years, the marine biologists based at the resort’s Marine Centre have been collecting photographs of the turtles.

As part of the resort’s marine conservation programme and to determine how many turtles are resident on the resort’s reef, biologists and divers at the Baros Marine Centre have begun a programme to identify them.

Although the turtles at the reef have different characteristics, such as one with a Batman symbol on its head, another one missing part of its flipper and one has its hind flippers tagged, these are not reliable methods of identification. Tags can come off and a turtle’s colour and markings change frequently over short periods of time.

The marine biologists needed something like a fingerprint for their identification programme. Turtles actually have a feature comparable to a human’s fingerprint. This is the number and shape of their post-ocular scutes (the scales behind the eye). Adopting approved scientific principles, the marine biologists assigned a number code to each scute on the turtle’s right and left profile, which is unique for each individual.

The results from their photo identification process revealed that Baros has at least five Hawksbill sea turtles regularly feeding and sleeping on the resort’s house reef. This is good news for guests who can now swim, dive and snorkel with turtles on underwater safaris led by the Marine Centre biologists and licensed divers from the resort’s Dive Centre.

The resort, with 30 overwater villas, ten with secluded sundeck swimming pools, and 45 beachside villas, ten of which have individual plunge pools, and one romantic Baros Residence, is ideal for divers, whether novices or experts, because of the variety of living coral, fish and turtles to be observed within a few metres of the beach.

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