© William R. Curtsinger / National Geographic Stock

Juan Carlos Cantu, Mexico Program Manager

Humans can regularly be seen on Mexico’s beaches, umbrella drink in hand. But we’re not the only ones who regularly hit the country’s beautiful sandy coastline. Literally, every sea turtle species on earth nests on Mexico’s beaches, save one that is only found in Australia. That’s why we’re known as the sea turtle capital of the world, and that’s why the way Mexico protects its sea turtles matters on a global scale.

Current Mexican law classifies all sea turtle species as endangered. But unfortunately this really only means turtles are protected from direct harvest—meaning they can’t be killed for their meat, skin, shell or eggs. Yet other factors pose serious dangers, including damage to and destruction of sea turtle habitat. Even nesting habitat, which is particularly important to the survival of these species, was not legally protected.

An endangered Olive Ridley sea turtle comes ashore to lay her eggs. (© Steven Price)

But not anymore, because in February, a new Mexican law (known as Official Norm-162) took effect, and it offers a whole slate of new protections for sea turtle nesting grounds in Mexico.

Previously, only the most important sea turtle nesting sites have been designated as sanctuaries and natural reserves, which allowed them some level of protection but left the majority of nesting habitat vulnerable.  But now, the new regulation extends habitat protections to all turtle nesting sites. Here are just some of the things that this new and unprecedented regulation has accomplished for sea turtle nesting habitat:

Protecting Native Habitat
The new regulation forbids the removal of native vegetation in the nesting habitat. When coastal vegetation is removed, especially from sand dunes, it allows increased erosion that could eventually destroy nesting beaches. In addition, some turtles like the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle even prefer to crawl up the beach all the way up to the vegetation to nest.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Hatchling (NPS)

Putting Out Artificial Lights
The regulation also addresses one of the main factors that disrupt nesting turtles: artificial lights from houses, hotels and roads. These light sources can not only disorient nesting females, but they can be lethal to emerging hatchlings. As they climb their way up from their sandy nest, newly-hatched turtles look for the subtle light reflecting off the surf and waves to orient themselves towards the sea. Artificial lighting can point them in the wrong direction and when you are that young, one wrong turn can force you to use up your limited energy stores, leading to an almost certain death. Even those that eventually make their way to the surf can be too exhausted to swim away, becoming easy pickings for fish and marine birds. For the first time in Mexico, this new regulation calls for moving, changing or eliminating any light sources that illuminates a nesting beach or creates a glow that could disorient the females or hatchlings. These changes won’t happen overnight, but authorities are already informing beachside homeowners and hotels of the new rules.

Off-Road Vehicles
The new regulation also helps address the use of heavy vehicles on the beach. Heavy vehicles may compact sand, destroy nests and eggs, create deep ruts that can become traps for nestlings and basically tear up nesting beaches. No more. From now on, vehicles on nesting beaches have to be less than 300 kg in weight and can only be used for patrolling and management of the nesting site.

In the U.S., sea turtle nesting grounds are often carefully protected. (© Robert S. Donovan)

Spectators
A less obviously threatening activity also outlawed by the new regulation is the release of newly hatched sea turtles. Many hotels near nesting beaches offer guests the opportunity to be part of the release of hatchlings into the sea. The problem is that they keep the hatchlings in confinement for many days until enough people sign up for the activity. So when they are released after being held in captivity, they are too weak to handle the surf or avoid predators. Hatchlings need to get into the water as soon as possible after hatching so they can use their limited energy to swim away. This tourism practice is now forbidden, and hatchlings have to be released immediately. Also for the first time, those who want to watch sea turtles laying their eggs during nesting season will have to follow strict rules.

All of these and many more regulations will help protect beaches, nests, female sea turtles, their eggs and hatchlings from now on. I am proud to say that Defenders of Wildlife played a key role in making this happen. We worked on this regulation for many years; in fact we were the ones who proposed its creation back in 2002. It took a decade of lobbying before we got the Environment Ministry to develop it, and Defenders is one of only four non-governmental organizations credited with helping to make these new protections a reality. It took a long time to get these regulations adopted but now when sea turtles hit Mexico’s beaches to nest, they will find it a safer place than ever.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Hatchling (NPS)

Of the world’s seven species of sea turtles, six are found in U.S. waters or nest on U.S. beaches: green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, loggerhead and olive ridley. The seventh species, the flatback turtle, is found only in Australia. At one time, millions of sea turtles swam in our oceans — but now all sea turtle species in U.S. waters are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The protection of the ESA is actually a major reason that we still have sea turtles swimming our oceans today.

Sea turtles have been around for about 110 million years — since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. While sea turtles were exploited for centuries for their meat, demand escalated during European exploration of the Americas and the green turtle was nearly exterminated. In the 1950s and 1960s, expanding international markets for sea turtle shell, skin and other products were taking a toll on sea turtle populations.  By the 1970s many sea turtle populations had plummeted from direct harvest. During that decade all species occurring in the U.S. were listed on the Endangered Species Act and by 1981 all species were included on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which banned international commercial trade in sea turtles and their products.

Being listed on the ESA was a turning point for sea turtles. ESA listing makes it illegal to harm, harass or kill sea turtles, hatchlings or their eggs, or to import, sell, or transport sea turtles or their products. Once sea turtles were listed, federal agencies developed recovery plans and started programs cooperating with states for sea turtle conservation. They also created new regulations to reduce the number of turtles accidentally caught in fisheries and developed plans to acquire and protect important sea turtle habitat.

Green turtles are endangered in the U.S. Photo courtesy Andy Bruckner, NOAA

The listing also compelled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to consult with other federal agencies on projects they fund, permit, or conduct to ensure that they do not cause harm to sea turtles or their habitat.  These new protections included important regulations requiring turtle excluder devices or TEDs in U.S. shrimp nets that were passed under the authority of the ESA to prevent the deaths of thousands of sea turtles each year. The United States also cooperates with other countries to protect sea turtles. For example, in 2004, Congress passed the Marine Turtle Conservation Act to provide funding for conserving sea turtles and their nesting habitat in other countries. The Act recognizes the global plight of sea turtles and the need for close cooperation among countries, and provides the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service support for on-the-ground conservation initiatives to benefit sea turtles.

ESA listings are relevant at the state level as well as the federal and most states where sea turtles nest have now passed additional laws to protect turtles. In Florida, for instance, the Marine Turtle Protection Act gives state agencies the power to enforce regulations that protect turtles and their habitat. States coordinate extensive monitoring and research efforts on nesting beaches. Some local governments have also passed regulations to eliminate or control artificial beachfront lighting, which deters females from nesting and disorients hatchlings.

Even though the Endangered Species Act is a U.S. law, it has made a big difference to sea turtle recovery on a global scale. Sea turtles are highly migratory — over the course of their lives they will live not only off the U.S. coast but in waters of other countries. Because sea turtles rely upon different habitats during their lifetimes and migration, they are vulnerable on multiple fronts, and conservation efforts for turtle populations in one country may be undermined by activities in another. It is critical that all nations cooperate to ensure the survival of sea turtles.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Photo: NOAA)

In North America, sea turtles primarily nest from North Carolina through Florida and along the beaches of the northern Gulf of Mexico, with over 90% occurring in Florida which hosts a globally-important nesting population of loggerhead turtles. Numbers of nesting leatherback and green turtles have been steadily increasing in Florida. Considering that green turtles were on the brink of extinction in the late 20^th century, the resurgence of this species in Florida is cause for celebration.

Because the ESA encourages habitat to be protected for listed species, Congress established the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in 1989 to protect federally endangered and threatened sea turtles. The Refuge offers hope for saving one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in the world along a 20.5-mile stretch of beach on Florida’s east central coast. It contains long stretches of quiet, undisturbed sandy beaches, with little or no artificial light, that are essential to the reproductive success and survival of sea turtles. The refuge also includes the most significant area for loggerhead sea turtle nesting in the Western Hemisphere, the most important nesting beach for green turtles in North America and a small but quickly growing rookery for leatherbacks.

While several sea turtle populations have improved since being listed on the ESA and CITES, serious threats remain.  Turtles are accidentally caught in commercial fishing operations, often drowned in nets or caught on lines intended for other types of marine life, or can accidentally eat or get caught up in plastic or other debris. The turtles’ coastal habitat is also in trouble – development is a constant threat to nesting grounds, as is construction of seawalls and artificial light pollution.  And as with so many species, a changing climate is causing swaths of the sea turtle habitat to change drastically, or even disappear.

That is why the protections provided by the ESA, along with the work we and many other organizations do to defend this important legislation, are as important today as they were when they were adopted 40 years ago. In the coming year, Defenders will build upon its work to protect sea turtles from death and injury both at sea and on U.S. and Mexican nesting beaches, continuing to focus on reducing the number of turtles that die accidentally in fisheries and expanding our work to protect Florida’s and Mexico’s important nesting beaches from harmful coastal development and disturbance.

An incredible animal with an incredible story, the Pacific loggerhead sea turtle will face many challenges throughout its life. From the day it is born, it enters the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean and travels thousands of lonely miles as it struggles to reach adulthood, return to the place it was born and continue the circle of life. Despite the perils of such a journey, the most severe threat these animals now face is humans.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Hatchling (NPS)

The Northern Pacific loggerhead sea turtle nests on the coasts of Japan, where it can lay approximately 95 to 150 eggs. After 56 to 80 days, the nestlings hatch and enter the cold Japanese waters to start one of the most amazing journeys of any living species. Their goal is to cross the Pacific Ocean to arrive at the rich feeding grounds off the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur in Mexico. The origins of this migration are a mystery, but the reality is that these small loggerhead sea turtles must travel 7,500 miles of open sea to reach their destination. This is an immense body of water for the little turtles to swim, and the trip can take up to six years. By the time they arrive in Baja, those that survive are no longer small hatchlings, but fairly large juveniles. They spend the next 10 years in Mexican waters, where they feed mostly on crustaceans called pelagic red crabs in a relatively small area in front of the Bay of Ulloa.

Slow to grow and mature, even at 15 to 20 years of age, loggerheads are still considered subadults when they begin their journey back across the Pacific. They will roam the Northern Pacific until they reach their reproductive age, then swim back to the beaches in Japan where they were born and start a new cycle of nesting. The round trip takes decades to complete, and the adult sea turtles will never leave these waters to traverse the Pacific Ocean again.

Unfortunately, the number of nesting females in Japan has decreased by 90 percent in the past three generations, which qualifies this loggerhead population as critically endangered. The main culprit is “bycatch” — the unintentional capture of sea  turtles in fisheries.

Fishing nets (Credit: Garry Knight)

In the waters off Japan, loggerhead sea turtles fall prey to massive nets, while in the open ocean the threat comes from the international longline fleet, which consists of fishing lines dozens of miles long, each with thousands of hanging hooks. Drift net fisheries (huge, miles-long nets that capture everything in their path) and gillnet fishers in the Pacific also have high bycatch of loggerheads. The National Marine Fisheries Service has noted that just 37 to 92 North Pacific loggerheads killed each year through bycatch would increase the species’ risk of extinction. In Mexico, these sea turtles are even more vulnerable to bycatch because they gather in such small areas to feed. Coastal fisheries in Baja, which mainly target shark and halibut, are capturing a staggering 1,000 loggerheads every year.

For years, teams of NGOs and scientists tried to convince fishermen to use alternative fishing gear and modify their fishing practices. Defenders of Wildlife helped this effort by producing materials like posters and even comic books with information on how to help sea turtles. Eventually these efforts started to pay off — fishermen were changing their fishing practices voluntarily, and bycatch was being reduced. Unfortunately, a recent seasonal ban on shark fishing prompted fishermen to start using their old methods on other species to increase their total catch, and as a result, bycatch has skyrocketed.

Bycatch alone is not illegal because it is not intentional. The problem here in Mexico is that the loggerheads’ feeding areas have little protection, and there are no regulations that mandate the use of alternative fishing gear or practices to reduce bycatch or in any way limit the number of sea turtles that can legally be caught as bycatch. For years, we worked to develop shark fishery regulations that include provisions to decrease sea turtle bycatch in Mexican waters, and in 2007, these were finally published in the official register. These regulations included a ban on drift nets and all surface nets, as well as mandatory use of circle hooks in surface longlines, which have been shown to be very successful in decreasing sea turtle bycatch and mortality. These efforts have helped, but since many Baja coastal fisheries use bottom-set longlines and gillnets, which invariably drown sea turtles, it has not been enough.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Photo: NOAA)

At the same time, Defenders joined an effort by local and international NGOs and research scientists to request that the Environment Ministry create a refuge area to protect loggerheads in their feeding grounds. For the past five years, environmental authorities have dragged their feet on this issue, with never-ending stakeholder meetings that resulted in no protected area, and no regulation of the different types of coastal fisheries that are negatively impacting the loggerhead population. This year, bycatch increased by 600 percent, making it the highest bycatch rate of loggerheads in the world.

We have denounced this unnecessary mass mortality, publicly demanding that government institutions, which are obliged by law to protect endangered species, take action immediately to put a stop to this loggerhead massacre. The response from the authorities was swift, promising to increase vigilance of fishery activities as well as confirming that a draft refuge area decree is in the works, but we haven’t seen anything yet.

On December 1st, a completely new administration took over, and we are hopeful that this may be the break loggerhead turtles need to finally get some real protection in place. We’ll keep you posted on what happens, and we will not stop until the North Pacific loggerhead population in Mexican waters has the protection it needs to survive.

Sea turtles nested at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in record numbers this season. The beach driving rule helps ensure that mother turtles can lay their eggs and return to the water safely.

A National Park Service rule that manages beach driving on the National Seashore in order to protect wildlife was implemented in February of this year.  The final rule was developed after Defenders and the Audubon Society sued the National Park Service for failing for more than 30 years to regulate ORV use at the seashore.

It was a big source of concern for some in the region, who feared it would discourage visitors and kill profit for businesses that depend on tourism dollars.  Instead, it appears the opposite is true:  the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau reported that visitor gross occupancy of Dare County during the bird and turtle nesting season (the months of April, May and June 2012) was the highest on record.  The National Park Service has also sold over 23,000 off-road vehicle (ORV) permits as of August 26.

While business was booming, sea turtles were thriving, with turtle nest counts exceeding all previous records at Cape Hatteras. As of August 29th, 222 nests were recorded and that number may increase through September as the sea turtle nesting season continues.

Piping plovers, a rare shorebird species that nests at Cape Hatteras, have also had a banner year: eleven rare piping plover chicks  survived to fledge from nests laid on the seashore’s beaches.

Responsible beach management helps piping plovers thrive at Cape Hatteras.

And all this happened with only a few beach miles closed for  protection.

Indeed, the National Park Service reported this week that 63.1 miles of Cape Hatteras Seashore ocean and inlet shoreline were open to the public, with only 1.8 miles temporarily closed for resource protection. Of those 63.1 miles, 46.1 miles were open to pedestrians only with another 17 miles open to pedestrians and ORV traffic.

What’s great about this news is that it shows how conservation can be a win-win for both wildlife and people.  The National Park Service rule balances visitor enjoyment of its beaches with the needs of the animals that depend on them to raise their young.  This rule and its positive outcome set a fantastic example for future wildlife protection decisions in the US and beyond.

Click here to read the Southern Environmental Law Center press release on this great news out of North Carolina.

Newborn sea turtles like these have a long swim ahead of them. We can help them get the best possible start by turning off artificial lights at night and keeping away from their nests.

Scientists aren’t sure what caused the sudden spike in the nest count, though some of the turtles may have increased their food intake this year.  What we can be sure of, though, is that we need protections for sea turtles to ensure that we have more banner seasons like this one.

Turtle Excluder Devices, or TEDs, help prevent sea turtles from being caught in fishing nets.  Regulations requiring most shrimp nets to have TEDs have been in place since the 1990s, but exempted nets still capture over 28,000 sea turtles every year.  The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently proposed to close the gap and extend the requirements to all shrimp nets, but wildlife opponents in Congress are moving to block this recovery effort.

Defenders is working hard to fight this opposition and make the oceans safer for the tiny hatchlings that will soon be heading out to sea.  Meanwhile, you can help sea turtles by reducing artificial lights at night if you live near nest beaches, since they can confuse and attract sea turtles trying to crawl back to the water.  Make sure to keep kids and pets away, too.  You can also help by picking up beach trash, which can attract raccoons and other predators.

Conservationists can feel hopeful that Florida nest numbers are up.  The true test, though, will be the number of turtles hatched on Florida beaches that return to lay their own eggs, many years from now.

  Click to listen to the Public News Service story with Defenders representative Elizabeth Fleming’s commentary!

When sea turtles eat these animals, the toxins accumulate in the turtle’s tissues and can poison them causing symptoms such as suppressed immunity, thyroid disruption, and liver and neurological damage.

The researchers, from the Hollings Marine Laboratory along with the College of Charleston’s Grice Marine Laboratory, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and the Loggerhead Marine life Center, worry that these sea turtles could be in serious danger. Oil spills and shrimp trawling nets already threaten their survival.

In the hope that such a study could help conservationists prepare for these new threats, researchers focused on Kemp’s ridley, leather back, hawksbill, loggerhead, and green turtles. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists all five species as endangered.

To find out more about these species at risk, visit Defender’s website.