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Research shows loggerhead sea turtles threatened by small-scale fishing operations
October 17, 2007Conservation efforts reduce loggerhead mortalities by working with fisherman in vital turtle habitat
Washington, DC. Ocean Conservancy Scientist, Wallace J. Nichols and University of California-Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham found surprising results in a recent peer-reviewed loggerhead sea turtle study that Nichols and Peckham conducted over the course of 10 years. The full study will be published on October 17 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE.
The study reveals that small-scale fishing operations are a greater threat to the survival of north Pacific loggerhead sea turtles than large industrial fishing operations. The species is seriously threatened. As The New York Times recently editorialized, "For an oceanic species such as the loggerhead, these are incredibly dangerous times. It is partly the longevity of these creatures that makes their death as bystanders among the global fishing fleets feel so tragic, a truly colossal waste of life."
North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles travel more than 7,000 miles from Japan via Hawaii to feed and grow to maturity in Baja California Sur, Mexico, spending up to 30 years there before returning to Japan to breed. The number of nesting females in Japan has declined by 50 to 80 percent over the past 10 years. Young loggerheads spend 70 percent of their time in areas that are popular small-scale fishing locations. Small-scale fishing operations threaten the survival of these turtles because the turtles are inadvertently caught in gillnets set on the ocean bottom and long fishing lines with many hooks that can easily ensnare loggerhead sea turtles.
"Many small-scale fishing operations off the coast of Baja California, Mexico overlap with high concentrations of loggerhead turtles. The combination of the indiscriminate gillnets and long-line fishing gear and the density of loggerhead turtles results in a deadly situation for the turtles," said Wallace J. Nichols, Ocean Conservancy Scientist. "Local efforts to educate fishermen and remove dangerous fishing gear from the water are essential to protecting this endangered species that relies on the food-rich waters in Baja California, Mexico for survival."
While small-scale fishing operations cause great threats in Baja California, Mexico, inexpensive changes in the kind of fishing gear that even just a few fishermen use results in saving thousands of loggerhead turtles every year. Local conservation efforts are already underway to address the problem and this opportunity. Hoyt Peckham and the local Baja California conservation group, Grupo Tortuguero, with the help of Ocean Conservancy, recently worked with a local fisherman to retire dangerous long-line fishing gear to save up to 700 loggerhead sea turtles each year.
Public Library of Science
North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles travel more than 7,000 miles from Japan via Hawaii to feed and grow to maturity in Baja California Sur, Mexico, spending up to 30 years there before returning to Japan to breed. The number of nesting females in Japan has declined by 50 to 80 percent over the past 10 years. Young loggerheads spend 70 percent of their time in areas that are popular small-scale fishing locations. Small-scale fishing operations threaten the survival of these turtles because the turtles are inadvertently caught in gillnets set on the ocean bottom and long fishing lines with many hooks that can easily ensnare loggerhead sea turtles.
"Many small-scale fishing operations off the coast of Baja California, Mexico overlap with high concentrations of loggerhead turtles. The combination of the indiscriminate gillnets and long-line fishing gear and the density of loggerhead turtles results in a deadly situation for the turtles," said Wallace J. Nichols, Ocean Conservancy Scientist. "Local efforts to educate fishermen and remove dangerous fishing gear from the water are essential to protecting this endangered species that relies on the food-rich waters in Baja California, Mexico for survival."
While small-scale fishing operations cause great threats in Baja California, Mexico, inexpensive changes in the kind of fishing gear that even just a few fishermen use results in saving thousands of loggerhead turtles every year. Local conservation efforts are already underway to address the problem and this opportunity. Hoyt Peckham and the local Baja California conservation group, Grupo Tortuguero, with the help of Ocean Conservancy, recently worked with a local fisherman to retire dangerous long-line fishing gear to save up to 700 loggerhead sea turtles each year.
Public Library of Science
Sea Turtle Current Events and Sea Turtle News RSSLoggerhead release to provide vital information to scientific community
Thursday, November 6, 2008, Dr. Kirt Rusenko, Marine Conservationist, and staff from Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton will release two juvenile loggerhead sea turtles raised in captivity into the Indian River Lagoon near Sebastian Inlet.
Small islands given short shrift in assembling archaeological record
Small islands dwarf large ones in archaeological importance, says a University of Florida researcher, who found that people who settled the Caribbean before Christopher Columbus preferred more minute pieces of land because they relied heavily on the sea.
Revealing the evolutionary history of threatened sea turtles
It's confirmed: Even though flatback turtles dine on fish, shrimp, and mollusks, they are closely related to primarily herbivorous green sea turtles.
Study finds high mortality of endangered loggerhead sea turtles in Baja California
Along the southern coast of Baja California, Mexico, scientists have been counting the carcasses of endangered sea turtles for a decade as part of an effort to assess and eliminate threats to loggerhead sea turtle populations.
Isotope analysis reveals foraging area dichotomy for Atlantic leatherback turtles
The beaches of French Guiana constitute a major reproduction site for leatherback turtles. This sea turtle, although a protected species, is threatened by human activity: it ingests plastics, get accidentally caught in fishing nets, sees its egg-laying sites destroyed and its adults hunted illegally for their meat and their eggs.
Turtle nesting threatened by logging practices in Gabon, Smithsonian warns
Endangered sea turtles are victims of sloppy logging practices in the west central African country Gabon, according to a study led by William Laurance, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The study will be published online in the journal Oryx later this month.
Governments should act now to save threatened turtles
Ecology and conservation experts from the University of Exeter today urge international governments to work together to protect threatened Caribbean sea turtle populations.
Red Tide causes sea turtle die-off in El Salvador
A "Red Tide" event that occurred off the coast of El Salvador late last year directly caused the deaths of some 200 sea turtles.
A giant sucking sound for sea turtles
Sea turtles that receive the highest protection in Costa Rica and other neighboring countries are dying by the thousands at the hands of unregulated-and unsustainable-commercial fishing in Nicaragua, according to a study by the Bronx Zoo based Wildlife Conservation Society.
Turtles indeed in danger
Even though many sea turtle populations are declining, quantifying factors that contribute to declines has been challenging. Mortality occurs on nesting beaches due to habitat loss, egg poaching, and predation. But turtles also die at sea due to accidental catches in fishing gear. In the March issue of Ecology Letters, Duke University researchers quantify incidental catch of loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and leatherbacks (Dermochelys coricea) in the global pelagic longline fishery. Despite infrequent encounters between turtles and longlines, the sheer magnitude of the longline fishery means more than 200,000 loggerheads and 50,000 leatherbacks were likely caught worldwide in 2000. Although
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