Sea Turtle Fund

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Sea turtles have roamed the world for 110 million years, existing as far back as the age of the dinosaurs.   Turtles thus far have survived massive global changes geographically and in terms of climate, environment, and human evolution and growing population pressures.  Sadly however, despite this extensive life history, sea turtles are now in danger of extinction as populations suffer the human impacts of coastal development, by-catch, overfishing, habitat destruction, marine pollution, human consumption, and changing ocean pH and temperatures.

TOF’s Sea Turtle Fund has been created to help address the shortage of sustained funding sources needed for addressing the global decline of sea turtles and sea turtle habitats. The fund is designed to be a strategic, long-term fund that will provide sustained, multi-year grantmaking opportunities for sea turtle conservation efforts around the world. Our goal is to encourage on-the-ground conservation action in the places where funding gaps are greatest and where our efforts can have the largest impact in preventing extinctions. This fund will focus on

• Protecting nesting beaches
• Reducing incidental & direct take
• Restoring the health of nearshore breeding and foraging environments
• Mitigating impacts related to sea level rise and climate change
• Strengthening international policies, building institutional capacity and supporting global coordination efforts.
  

 
Adult sea turtles can vary in size from 2 to 6 feet long, weighing 78 to 1900 pounds. The largest adult male leatherback turtle ever recorded was almost 10 feet in length and weighed over 2000 pounds. Despite their massive proportions, female turtles are able to meticulously carve out a flask-shaped nest (narrow at the top and bowl shaped at the bottom) by gently scooping out the sand using her back flippers - never even seeing the nest itself before returning to sea. Six-ten weeks later, up to 200 hatchlings emerge which are about the size of a child’s hand. Interestingly, the sand temperature determines the sex of a baby turtle during its incubation period. While the exact pivotal temperature is population specific (anywhere between 27.7C to 31C), generally cooler sand temperatures produce males and warmer temperatures produce females. This is an important consideration for turtle conservation efforts that involve nest relocation. 
   
Despite such large nest sizes, it has been estimated that only 1% of these hatchlings will reach adulthood. Nests are subject to poaching by either humans or wild animals; they can also suffer compaction by beach vehicle tires, or become flooded by storm surges. Once hatched and headed off to sea, baby sea turtles must avoid becoming dinner for a hungry sea gull, roaming dog, or other beachside blockage. After they finally make it into the crashing surf, they disappear into the open ocean for a period of time referred to by famous sea turtle researcher, Archie Carr, as the “lost year”.  Little is known about this pelagic life phase but it includes numerous threats from entanglement in derelict or active fishing nets, longlines, and marine debris, to consumption by natural predators.  .

Once turtles grow to juvenile or adult life stage, they can be found in foraging areas where seagrass, jellyfish or other food sources abound. Most sea turtles are carnivores (meat eaters), and enjoy crustaceans (crabs, lobster, shrimp, and other shelled invertebrates), shellfish, jellyfish, Man-of-War, and small fish. The green turtle is an herbivore and only eats sea grass and algae.  As soon as the reproductive season begins, male and female turtles migrate back to the inter-nesting habitat or ‘migratory corridor’ that is located alongshore their original nesting beaches. It is usually during the onshore nesting period that scientists implant satellite transmitter devices to help track turtle movements and migrations at sea. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have helped scientists to observe turtle movements over the course of a full year, sometimes logging over a thousand miles!

There are two subgroups of sea turtles and seven distinct species in the world today. The unique family Dermochelyidae hosts the only soft-shelled sea turtle known as the leatherback; while the remaining six species of hard-shelled sea turtle make up the Cheloniidae family. All seven species of sea turtles are listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as either Endangered or Critically Endangered, with the exception of the flatback turtle whose population status is uknown and thus listed as Data Deficient.  See below:
 
Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) - Critically Endangered
Green (Chelonia mydas) - Endangered
Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) - Critically Endangered
Flatback (Natator depressus) - Status Unknown
Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) - Endangered
Kemp’s Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) - Critically Endangered
Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) - Endangered


Threats

Coastal Development: Certain land uses adjacent to and on turtle nesting beaches can threaten sea turtle nesting habitat.  For example, the use of turtle nesting beaches for logging roads in certain areas of Indonesia results in direct degradation of the beach ecosystem as well as the creation of physical barriers to female turtles looking to nest and hatchlings scrambling to sea, as logs wash up on the beach. Increased human presence along nesting beaches, including driving vehicles, can also compact sand making it more difficult for nesting females to dig nests and can crush incubating nests or emerging hatchlings.  Artificial lighting along beachfront properties and increasing number of coastal resorts can disorient hatchlings who rely on the ambient light of the moon to direct them seaward. And of course, seafloor dredging, vessel traffic, pier construction and alteration of vegetation can also affect turtle nesting patterns and mortality.

Fisheries Bycatch: Expansion of fishing activities in the high seas and coastal areas in the second half of the 20th century has greatly increased sea turtle mortality due to incidental capture in more sophisticated and wide-reaching fishing gear. This is especially the case in pelagic longline, gillnet, set-net, trawl, purse seine and demersal longline fisheries operating in the range of sea turtles, primarily in the tropics and subtropics. Turtles eat squid or other bait on longlines, get hooked on j-hooks and cannot surface for air.  Or, they get caught in shrimp trawls and suffocate unless the trawls have Turtle Excluder Devices installed.  Other turtles get caught in artisanal fishing gear (purse seins or gill nets) as they approach nearshore habitats for mating or nesting purposes. This sort of capture is largely undocumented but is a significant source of turtle mortality. Most international conservation efforts have focused on reducing turtle by-catch in targeted, commercial fisheries but have less information about incidental capture in local or national fisheries.

Overfishing and Direct Take: In addition to accidental capture in fisheries, there are still a number of countries throughout the world where turtle harvesting is unregulated. Consequently fishermen purposely kill sea turtles at sea or on nesting beaches to consume their eggs for food and using the turtle for its meat, or products such as oil, leather and ornamental jewelry. Some cultures still eat sea turtle meat in soup. Documentation of traditional turtle harvests is largely unavailable and thus remains an unknown data point to scientists conducting global turtle population studies.  Because of the migratory nature of sea turtles, unregulated harvests in one country can render conservation and management strategies in another country ineffective.

Marine Debris and Pollutants: Many sea turtles die each year due to injury from ingestion of plastics or petroleum byproducts. Others die from entanglement in derelict fishing gear or plastic, ropes and other debris. Contamination in polluted waters may also result in immune system disorders such as fibropapilloma (turtle tumors) and alterations in important turtle feeding grounds like sea grasses.

Climate Change, Variability and Sea-level rise: Climate change related variables pose new threats to sea turtles.  Sea-level rise due to thermal expansion and melting sea ice can cause flooding of incubating nests and reduce overall beach frontage area. Coastal inundation and erosion from severe storm surges can also significantly impact and degrade turtle nests.  Climate variability and related changes in sea currents and temperatures may alter turtle migrations and hamper normal travel routes. Warmer sand temperature on turtle nesting beaches may alter natural sex ratios of hatchlings.   Additionally, human responses to sea level rise (construction of shoreline protectors-- sea walls, surge breakers or bulkheads) can further degrade and erode the coastline and present physical obstacles to nesting or hatching sea turtles.  The only positive aspect about climate change and sea turtles is that jellyfish are a major source of diet for the herbivorous sea turtle and typically, as the sea water warms, the environment becomes more friendly to jellyfish, thus increasing a food source for sea turtles.