Species on the Brink
|
Archived Articles
Species on the Brink
Resources at Risk
Good News
Get Outdoors |
Thousands of Leatherbacks Lost to Longliners PACIFIC GROVE, California, April 29, 2002 (ENS) - A moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean is urgently needed to keep the world's largest living marine turtle from extinction, a conference of sea turtle experts declared Thursday. The leatherback turtle is classified internationally as endangered, and its Pacific populations are vanishing fast. This week 50 leatherback turtle experts gathered in Pacific Grove for the Leatherback International Survival Conference to map strategies that might save the Pacific leatherbacks. Todd Steiner, director of the California based Turtle Island Restoration Network which sponsored the week long gathering, said delegates estimate there are fewer than 5,000 nesting leatherbacks left in the Pacific, down 95 percent from the 91,000 that existed in 1980.
A wide cross section of people attended the conference - conservationists and scientists, fishermen and fisheries managers, and government officials. The majority of delegates were from the United States, and people were there from Mexico, from Malaysia, from Costa Rica, from Chile, and a representative of the Convention on Migratory Species, an international treaty. To save the leatherbacks from extinction, the delegates passed a resolution that calls on the United Nations, the United States and all other nations "to institute a moratorium on pelagic longline, gillnet and other fisheries harmful to Pacific leatherback turtles until such activities can be conducted without harm to the species, and provide allocations of transitional aid to affected fishers and communities." Longliners are boats that stream thousands of hooks miles behind them. Drift gillnets are panels of netting suspended vertically in the water by floats, with weights along the bottom. Drift gillnet gear is anchored to a vessel, and drifts along with the current. New U.S. measures to protect sea turtles from drift gillnets were put in place in August 2001.
Delegates want to make it clear that the call for a moratorium does not mean that they are opposed to fishing or fishermen. Ken Hinman of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, said, "We are not against commercial fishing. We are opposed to indiscriminate and unsustainable types of fishing. We believe the moratorium on pelagic longlines and gillnets should include assistance to fishers to make the transition to alternative sustainable fishing methods." Steiner said, "We really want to bring the fishers along, and look for alternatives, and make sure that international funding is available for transitions to other fisheries or other activities." The Pacific Coast of Mexico was once described as having the largest leatherback population in the world, with tens of thousands of turtles nesting along the coast each year. But just 50 turtles nested there this year, Steiner said. "On what was most the most important nesting beach in the world, Mexiquillo in the Mexican state of Michoacan, just four individual turtles nested this year," he said. In their resolution, the turtle experts request the governments of all nations where Pacific leatherback turtles nest to immediately protect these sites, to stop egg collection and maximize hatchling survival. Their resolution also asks that "emergency national and international funds be appropriated to implement all conservation actions necessary for the survival of the species." Money is needed for a large number of conservation actions such as better protection of the nesting beaches, better monitoring of the beaches to avoid poaching, and to purchase sensitive turtle nesting sites. "There's development going on behind some of the most important nesting beaches, including one in Costa Rica, Playa Grande in Las Baulas National Park, which is a leatherback national park. Las baulas means leatherback in Spanish," Steiner explained. "There's a strong desire here to purchase that," he said.
Not all delgates signed the resolution. "We had the president of the Hawaiian longliners here, Sean Martin," Steiner said. "Obviously he didn't sign the document saying there should be a moratorium on longline fishing. They are here because they want to find a solution, and they see the writing on the wall." "We also had a representative of the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council. There were people here from the U.S. government who didn't sign, obviously they couldn't sign for the U.S. government," he said. Turtle excluder devices on fishing nets are supposed to release sea turtles alive instead of drowning them in the nets, but turtle conservationists say laws requiring their use are not being observed. "There are about 20 nations that import shrimp into the United States that have passed laws saying they are using turtle excluder devices," Steiner said, "but we believe non-compliance is relatively high, based on our personal observations especially in Latin America. So the laws are in place, but the will to enforce them by the nations that pass the laws is in question." Unlike other turtles, the leatherback has no visible shell. Instead, it has a carapace made up of hundreds of irregular bony plates, covered with a leathery skin. Leatherbacks are one of the few animals that feed exclusively on jellyfish. They can reach six to eight feet in length and weigh 1,200 to 1,500 pounds. The life expectancy of leatherbacks is not known, but first breeding is thought to be between 10 and 15 years old. Female leatherbacks come ashore to nest every two to three years in the warm sands of tropical beaches. Seven weeks later, when the eggs hatch, the hatchlings rush back to the water to avoid predatory seabirds. From this time onward leatherbacks spend their lives at sea. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved. |
Female leatherback turtle digs her nest. (Photo credit unknown)
Longliner tied up in American Samoa (Photo courtesy 
Leatherback hatchlings in Las Baulas National Park (Photo courtesy 