Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Endangered loggerhead turtle. Photo credit: Brian J. Skerry/National Geographic Stock

WASHINGTON (October 13, 2011) – Conservation groups today asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to hold the National Marine Fisheries Service accountable for its role in the shrimp trawl-related deaths of endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2011 alone, an extraordinary number of sea turtles – more than 1,400 — have washed ashore dead or injured in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic Ocean. The Fisheries Service has linked these “strandings” to drowning in shrimp fishing nets. Despite this rise in sea turtle strandings and the devastating impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, the Fisheries Service has not fulfilled its duty to protect these imperiled animals from harm.

“Sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico are still reeling from the impacts of last year’s oil spill, and they simply can’t withstand the chronic threat of drowning in shrimp nets,” said Jaclyn Lopez, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The government’s own data show that record numbers of sea turtles have perished in the Gulf of Mexico this year, yet the Fisheries Service has not taken protective measures to prevent sea turtles from dying in the shrimp-trawl fishery.”

Shrimp trawling has for many decades been the primary threat to sea turtle survival in the U.S., and turtles in the Gulf of Mexico may be more vulnerable now to drowning in shrimp nets as a result of the BP spill and cleanup efforts. The shrimp trawl fishery incidentally captures and kills thousands of threatened and endangered sea turtles each year. “Turtle excluder devices” can help prevent turtles from drowning in the nets, but not all shrimpers are required to use them and still others simply don’t comply with existing regulations.

“The Fisheries Service has admitted that increased turtle protections in the shrimp fishery are needed,” said Sierra Weaver, attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “It’s time to translate that need for action into real protections for these animals.”

“The Fisheries Service is allowing this fishery to continue without requiring protections it knows can save turtles,” said Chris Pincetich of the Turtle Island Restoration Network. “Turtle excluder devices should be required now for all shrimpers.”

The Fisheries Service admitted in August 2010 that it needed to reassess the impact of the shrimp fishery on sea turtles in light of the dramatic increase in strandings, but it still has not finished that analysis. Then, following 379 sea turtle strandings – by government estimates only 5 to 6 percent of actual mortality – along the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana in early 2011, the Fisheries Service temporarily improved enforcement and announced that it would explore new rules to reduce sea turtle mortality. Meanwhile shrimp fishing continues as usual; the Fisheries Service has denied requests from the conservation groups for emergency measures to reduce the harm to sea turtles.

Turtles in the Gulf of Mexico may be more vulnerable now to drowning in shrimp nets as a result of the BP spill and cleanup efforts. Photo Credit: NOAA.

“The Fisheries Service has admitted that increased turtle protections in the shrimp fishery are needed,” said Sierra Weaver, attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “It’s time to translate that need for action into real protections for these animals.”

“Reducing sea turtle deaths from fisheries is key to preventing extinction,” said Marydele Donnelly, director of international policy at the Sea Turtle Conservancy. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that shrimping plus noncompliance and minimal enforcement equals a lot of dead turtles. By failing to uphold the law, the Fisheries Service is undermining decades of conservation and squandering millions of private and public dollars.”

The Endangered Species Act requires the Fisheries Service to ensure that its actions do not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered species and to respond to evidence of new threats to their survival. Today’s lawsuit challenges the agency’s failure to protect sea turtles in the wake of a huge increase in strandings and seeks to establish protections for the turtles, including increased enforcement and observer coverage to reduce turtle deaths from shrimp trawls; closure of sensitive areas to shrimp trawling; and broader requirements for shrimp boats to use turtle-excluder devices to allow turtles to escape drowning in all types of trawl gear.

Conservation groups filing today’s suit include the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Defenders of Wildlife, and Sea Turtle Conservancy.

Learn more:

See how offshore drilling threatens sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.

Plastic bags imperil leatherback sea turtles, who are thought to mistake the bags for jellyfish.

(An irregular column to capture insults to wildlife)

Plastic bags have long been the bane of conservationists around the world. Cheap to produce and disposed of without a second thought, plastic bags kill marine animals, leech toxic chemicals and take an estimated 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. Not to mention they play a starring role in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So why are California textbooks now touting positive messages about these disposable derelicts?

According to the Huffington Post, schools officials in California edited a new environmental curriculum to include positive messages about plastic shopping bags after feeling pressure from the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry. This included a rewrite of textbooks and teachers’ guides, featuring a new section to the 11th-grade teachers’ edition textbook called “The Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags.” The title and some of the textbook language were inserted almost verbatim from letters written by the chemistry council.

Absent from the rewrite is the fact that each year, Americans use an estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags – almost all of which are thrown into the garbage, and with many migrating to the planet’s rivers, lakes and oceans. The millions of tons of plastic floating in the world’s oceans traps as many as a million seabirds every year, as well as some 100,000 marine mammals. Many of these animals mistake the bags for food, such as the imperiled leatherback sea turtle, who likely mistakes the plastic bags for jellyfish, a preferred food source.

Fortunately, change is in the air: throughout the country, efforts have been launched to cut down on the use of plastic bags, from the explosion of reusable shopping bag sales to plastic bag taxes. Washington, D.C. was the first to institute a 5 cent tax on plastic bags distributed by any ”business that sells food items,” from grocery stores to bakeries. The Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Act, known locally as “Skip the Bag, Save the River,” is an attempt to save the city’s degraded Anacostia River.

Not only has the effort been successful, but Treehugger asked if this may be the most effective tax ever. Just one month after its introduction last January, the number of plastic bags handed out by supermarkets and other establishments dropped from the 2009 monthly average of 22.5 million to just 3 million. While significantly reducing plastic waste, the tax revenues will be used to clean up the Anacostia. The District isn’t the only one reaping success from a plastic bag ban. In China, a ban on super thin plastic bags reduced plastic bag usage by 66 percent and saved China 1.6 million tons of petroleum. With savings like these, a plastic bag tax has the potential to catch on worldwide.

Now THAT’S the kind of problem solving that should be taught in schools.

To learn more about how plastic bags make it from the check-out aisle to our waterways, watch The Majestic Plastic Bag – a Mockumentary.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a natural treasure on North Carolina’s coast. And tourists aren’t the only ones flocking to the seashore’s beaches each year–the 67 miles of shoreline provide homes to an array of wildlife, from piping plovers to loggerhead sea turtles. Sadly, decades of unregulated beach driving have taken a serious toll on these threatened and endangered animals.

Defenders and other conservation groups successfully pushed for a temporary science-based management plan which, in just four years, has allowed these birds and turtles to make a comeback. In 2007, imperiled sea turtles created just 82 nests on the shore. But in 2010, after 3 years of temporary protections, that number rose to 153.

But that recovery may be lost if stronger, permanent measures are not put in place. Just last year, a threatened loggerhead sea turtle was tragically run over and killed while making her way to nest on a Cape Hatteras beach. The practice of posting signs regarding the nighttime beach driving restrictions during turtle nesting season did not deter the off-road vehicle drivers and did not protect the turtle.

Now the National Park Service is proposing new, permanent regulations for off-road vehicle use on the seashore’s beaches. But instead of protecting the animals that call the seashore home, these regulations jeopardize much-needed wildlife protections and put the future for sea turtles and shorebirds like the piping plover in doubt.

Last year, this loggerhead was crushed by an off-road vehicle while nesting on Cape Hatteras shores.

The proposed regulations will determine how Cape Hatteras is managed for decades, and will set a precedent for other national parks. A balanced plan would guarantee adequate space and protections for wildlife, while still allowing responsible beach driving in some areas so that all visitors can fully enjoy this national treasure. But as written, the proposed regulation does not mandate specific, science-based protections for the wildlife that depends on the seashore. In fact, it only sets aside areas for off-road vehicles. The proposal reserves just 26 of the seashore’s 67 miles of beach for pedestrians and wildlife year-round while the rest is set aside for year-round and seasonal beach driving.

You can make a difference! The National Park Service needs to know that people like you support management at your national parks that safeguards wildlife from off-road driving and balances the needs of all seashore users. The Park Service is accepting comments until Tuesday, September 6. Make your voice heard now.

The turtle makes its way back to the Atlantic. Photo courtesy State Park Ranger Keith Betts

What should have been a routine patrol in Delaware’s Cape Henlopen State Park last week  instead became a walk to remember when park ranger Curtis Reynolds stumbled upon the state’s first-ever nesting sea turtle. It was just before dawn when the four-foot-long female turtle crawled onto the beach, dug a hole with its flippers and laid 194 eggs before returning to Atlantic waters.

A sea turtle found nesting so far north is unusual enough. But the incident soon turned out to be even more incredible than first believed. According to marine experts, the female sea turtle–previously thought to be a loggerhead turtle–is actually a green sea turtle, a species most often found in the tropical waters of Florida and the Caribbean. While loggerheads will sometimes nest as far north as the barrier islands of Virginia, green turtle nests have been documented only as far north as North Carolina. This female had traveled quite a distance before crawling up on Delaware shores.

According to the Delaware News-Journal, the eggs were buried as deep as 28 inches, but too close to the tide for the comfort of Suzanne Thurman, executive director of the MERR Institute, a nonprofit that responds to marine animal strandings and rescues in Delaware. At her request, and with the permission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the eggs were carefully moved about 100 yards away to a higher area and reburied. Although rescue crews are working to keep people away to protect the eggs, Defenders’ Elizabeth Fleming said that with about 60 days for the eggs to incubate before hatching, it’s unclear if they’ll survive the region’s cooling temperatures.

What could have brought this wayward turtle so far from home? Could warming ocean temperatures caused by climate change be responsible for this northern nest? We may not know the reason yet, but this anomaly reminds us that in an an uncertain future, wildlife is going to need all the help it can get.

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

You Can Help!

MERR is looking for volunteers to help monitor these eggs. If you’re interested in helping, call 302-228-5029.

Standing up for Sea Turtles:

Defenders is working to protect sea turtles from drowning in shrimping nets. Learn more about how an unregulated fishery threatens endangered turtles and what we’re doing to help.

Off-road vehicles can pose a grave danger to nesting sea turtles. See how Defenders is working to protect turtles from this threat at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – There are some very simple things Florida residents can do will help sea turtles survive and thrive. The Sea Turtle Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife say a great start is to install turtle-friendly lighting in developments along the coast.

Listen to the Public News Service Story:

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Gary Appelson is the policy coordinator for the Conservancy. He says a few simple lighting changes would make a big difference for sea turtles.

“One change is to use amber-colored lighting. Also, you lower and direct the lighting so it’s not shining on the beach, and you shield the lighting.”

Those measures would make it less likely that the turtles will get confused and head for the lights rather than the ocean after laying their eggs, he explains. Keeping trash secured is another way to help the turtles, he adds, because predators that eat eggs will not be attracted to the beach by garbage.

Appelson also points out a side benefit of installing turtle-friendly lighting, which in many cases incorporates LED technology.

“Very surprising and significant energy efficiency and cost-savings occur by retrofitting with sea-turtle-friendly lighting.”

Defenders' Elizabeth Fleming

Elizabeth Fleming, the Defenders of Wildlife Florida representative, says people can take other easy steps beyond lighting to help the sea turtles, as well.

“Keeping the beaches free of trash is one of the best ways to ensure that we’re not attracting even more predators onto the beach.”

Animals like foxes and raccoons are attracted to trash and love a meal of turtle eggs, she says.

Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories.

Learn more about how Defenders is working to protect sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.

Skipjack tuna

Birds are hardly the only marine life we see during this Gulf study. One morning out at sea I see a shiny, transparent piece of debris bobbing on a wave. Oh no, I think; it looks like plastic, of a size and appearance to pose a real danger to any sea turtles thinking to get an easy meal.

But it is entirely natural, a Portuguese man-of-war “jellyfish.” It has a body consisting of a translucent gas-filled, bladder-like float tinted pink, blue, or violet, part of which forms a crest which functions as a sail for drifting movement across the sea. Underneath this float is a cluster of polyps from which hang tentacles of up to 165 feet long. These pelagic colonial hydroids or hydrozoans are infamous for their very powerful, painful stings. One of the Gordon Gunter’s very own crew members was stung fiercely during a swim at the beach last week in Key West.

Our crew is fanatical about fish, and fishing. During daylight hours, we trail a line or two far behind the ship while it is underway, hoping to catch our lunch or supper. We are not disappointed. Mahi-mahi (also known as dolphin-fish or dorado) are our most frequent catch. The intense blue, yellow, and green colors of these predators are visible even when the fish is several feet below the ocean surface. In addition to those caught, it is not unusual to see two or three scattered around anything floating, a wooden board, a small plastic float, a patch of Sargassum weed.

Spinner dolphins

We also catch several wahoo, a torpedo-shaped member of the mackerel family highly regarded by many gourmets. Some wahoo have reached 8 feet in length, and weigh up to 180 pounds. Today we catch a small skip-jack tuna, a fish that schools up and roils the water during its feeding frenzies. And above those frenzies hover birds, numerous and diverse, hoping to seize a small fish being chased by the larger ones.

Although not tallied in large numbers, two of the three marine mammals we do see are species I’ve never seen before. In addition to the widespread bottlenose dolphin, we see a small pod of pan-tropical spotted dolphin, dashing in to playfully ride the bow wave of the ship. Compared to their larger cousins, the Atlantic spotted dolphin, the spots on this species are smaller, at times entirely absent, but their upper and lower jaws separated by thin white “lips” on their long beak confirm their identity. And one evening at dusk, another dolphin pod sneaks up on the Gunter from the stern. I notice a very long, erect dorsal fin, not as swept-backward as on most dolphins. Could it be? After one dolphin playfully breaches through the water, doing a double-axel role before splashing back down, there is no doubt: these are spinner dolphins, a species I have long wanted to see.

Leatherback turtle

Throughout our winter and spring surveys this year, we have seen very few sea turtles in the Gulf. But this day I am rewarded twice over. Not just one, but two huge leatherback turtles. This endangered species is the largest, deepest-diving, most migratory and wide-ranging of all sea turtles. Some leatherback turtles reach 2,000 pounds! One is so close to the ship that I can clearly see the large pink spot on the top if its head, each spot as unique and useful as our fingerprints for determining individual identity.

Learn more:

Stay tuned for more tales from the Gulf! Click here to read Chris’ other accounts of life at sea.

One year later, Defenders continues to fight for wildlife in the Gulf. Click here to learn more about what we’re doing and see what YOU can do to help!