Tuesdays with Turtles – Wednesday Edition

Byoliveridley

Where I’m a day late and a dollar short. It turns out that the Mediterranean sea is awash with plastic and most of the loggerheads there have swallowed plastic bags. So, the next time you’re out looking for loggerhead nests and find one in which all the eggs have been double bagged, do not be surprised! Now. if they start swallowing egg cartons…

Mediterranean drowning in a hidden sea of plastic rubbish – Independent Online Edition > Europe

A recent study of the endangered loggerhead turtle off Spain’s Mediterranean coast found that 75 per cent of them had swallowed plastic bags. Mr Rodriguez said: “We have to understand the sea is not a tip; it will constantly return to us what we throw in.”

Seriously, plastic bags need to go away.

Similar Posts

  • |

    Killer nets reinstated

    Byoliveridley

    Council Decisions: March 2006

    Drift Gillnet Management

    The Council adopted a recommendation to NMFS to authorize an exempted fishing permit (EFP) that would allow drift gillnet fishing in the current August 15-November 15 closed area. The EFP fishery would be governed by several requirements for all vessels, including, to carry an observer; to limit total fishing effort in the EFP fishery to 300 sets; to immediately cease the EFP fishery if, and when, two leatherback sea turtles were encountered by the fishing gear; and to immediately cease the EFP fishery if one mortality or serious injury occurred to any of the following marine mammals: short-finned pilot whale, sperm whale, fin whale, gray whale, humpback whale, or minke whale.

    And, with that, starts the rather egregious practice of drift gillnet fishing. The restrictions seem fairly tight, an observer on every boat, and end to the fishery after two incidences of capture. There is definitely more than meets the eye here, I don’t know what. Drift gillnet fishing is well documented to cause turtle catch, this from the 1998 Fishery Bulletin for 1990-1995

    In the drift gillnet fishery, seven out of 387 mammals observed entangled were released alive. In the set gillnet fishery, five out of 1,263 mammals observed entangled were released alive. Estimates of incidental kill are presented along with estimates of entanglement for species that were observed to be released alive. For the period under consideration, the estimated mortality for the drift gillnet fishery was over 450 marine mammals each year. A total of 20 turtles and 3 seabirds were observed entangled during the entire period. The most frequently entangled species in this fishery were common dolphins, Delphinus spp., and northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris. Estimated cetacean mortality in the driftnet fishery decreased from 650 in 1991 to 417 in 1995; pinniped mortality decreased from 173 in 1991 to 116 in 1995. Estimated cetacean mortality in the set gillnet fishery ranged from a high of 38 in 1991 to a low 14 in 1993; pinniped mortality rose to a high of 4,777 in 1992 and then decreased to 1,016 in 1995. We postulate that there has been a decline in the number of pinnipeds and cetaceans in the setnet fishery owing to area closure. No similar proposal can be made for the driftnet fishery. The most frequently entangled mammals in the setnet fishery were California sea lions, Zalophus californianus, and harbor seals, Phoca vitulina. Six turtles and 1,018 seabirds were estimated entangled in this fishery during the NMFS Observer Program from July 1990 to December 1995.

    So what’s the deal, this thing caught 20 turtles in 5 years, so it is going to catch turtles, no doubt about it. Anyone who does not get what the death of one adult sea turtle means read this. Sea turtles are wonderfully fragile animals given their size, they take long to mature sexually, they do not breed all that much and less than 1% of turtle hatchlings survive to adulthood. Leatherbacks are highly endangered.

    I have a feeling that this is the first part of a one-two punch intended to reinstate the famed turtle killer long line swordfish nets on the pacific coast. The “proof” that these nets do not catch turtles will be used to lobby for longline swordfishing in, oh say three months?

  • Tuesdays with Turtles – Must See TV Edition

    Byoliveridley

    PBS is showing a nature film following a loggerhead turtle on a looooooong journey.

    Nature . TV Schedule | PBS

    Voyage of the Lonely Turtle
    Sunday, April 15, 8:00pm
    CHANNEL 4 (UNC-TV)

    F. Murray Abraham narrates this account of a 30-year-old female loggerhead turtle’s journey from Mexico to Japan (its birthplace) to lay eggs. During the yearlong trip (travel speed: 1mph), she passes an array of marine creatures, including blue whales.

    Here’s a press release on the show, sounds great, don’t forget to watch (or record!): April 15th at 8:00 PM.

  • Tuesdays with Turtles – Green Turtles Deluged?

    Byoliveridley

    I mentioned recently that elevated temperatures from climate could skew sea turtle sex ratios towards females. The featured news article highlights research which speculates that storm surges caused by increased hurricane (they call them cyclones in Austraila and India) intensity from climate change might lead to the flooding of green turtle nests in Florida, hastening their extinction. Why only the greens? Because they nest later than the other turtles and tend to be around during the height of the Atlantic hurricane season.

    We know from previous research that loggerhead turtles have been nesting earlier because of elevated temperatures. Will the greens catch up. More pertinently, will there be enough survival of the early nesters of this generation to keep a viable population going while the whole population adapts? As with all climate change suspense thrillers, only time will tell… Depressing, at any rate.

    News in Science – Cyclones may blast turtles to extinction – 15/05/2007

    More severe tropical cyclones expected as a result of climate change may lead to the extinction of the green sea turtle in some areas within 100 years, researchers say.

    The cyclones are expected to threaten how well the turtles nest and hatch eggs, placing pressure on already endangered populations, some of which are also threatened by fish trawling.

    Researchers including PhD candidate David Pike, from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney, report their findings online in the journal Oecologia.

    The researchers studied more than 40,000 sea turtles nests on an uninhabited, 38 kilometre stretch of beach along the Atlantic coast of Florida from 1995 to the end of 2005.

    Each night during this period researchers surveyed the beach for turtles emerging to lay eggs, or for tracks of turtles that had already deposited eggs.

    The stretch of beach is home to the loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles, which start nesting at the beginning in April and end in late September.

    This nesting season largely coincides with region’s tropical storm season, which runs from June to November.

    Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) and, to a lesser degree, loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) get around this by nesting and hatching earlier.

    Only nests laid late in the season are inundated with seawater during storm surges.

    But green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nest last.

    Their entire nesting season occurs during Florida’s tropical cyclone season, which means their nests and developing eggs are extremely vulnerable to being washed away and killed.

    Researchers are concerned that increases in the severity of tropical cyclones in the future may cause green turtle nesting success to worsen.

  • Tuesdays with Turtles – Why Adult Turtles Die so You Can Eat Fish

    Byoliveridley

    An interesting paper featuring a North Carolinian turtle researcher Larry Crowder from Duke University:

    Blackwell Synergy – Conservation Biology, Volume 21 Issue 1 Page 79 – February 2007 (Full Text)

    Abstract: Although some sea turtle populations are showing encouraging signs of recovery, others continue to decline. Reversing population declines requires an understanding of the primary factor(s) that underlie this persistent demographic trend. The list of putative factors includes direct turtle and egg harvest, egg predation, loss or degradation of nesting beach habitat, fisheries bycatch, pollution, and large-scale changes in oceanographic conditions and nutrient availability. Recently, fisheries bycatch, in particular bycatch from longline fisheries, has received increased attention and has been proposed as a primary source of turtle mortality. We reviewed the existing data on the relative impact of longline bycatch on sea turtle populations. Although bycatch rates from individual longline vessels are extremely low, the amount of gear deployed by longline vessels suggests that cumulative bycatch of turtles from older age classes is substantial. Current estimates suggest that even if pelagic longlines are not the largest single source of fisheries-related mortality, longline bycatch is high enough to warrant management actions in all fleets that encounter sea turtles. Nevertheless, preliminary data also suggest that bycatch from gillnets and trawl fisheries is equally high or higher than longline bycatch with far higher mortality rates. Until gillnet and trawl fisheries are subject to the same level of scrutiny given to pelagic longlines, our understanding of the overall impact of fisheries bycatch on vulnerable sea turtle populations will be incomplete

    Adult sea turtle killing by humans occurs due to

    1. Harvest, killing them deliberately for food

    2. Incidental bycatch in fishing nets

    3. Habitat loss

    The paper focuses on long line fishing and its effects on turtle mortality. So, if like me, you’re not a fisherperson, what is long line fishing and what are some other kinds of fishing techniques that have effects of sea turtles? Well, the Duke Project GloBal research team on studying bycatch has a nice primer. Some highlights:

    1. Longlines: As the word suggests, longlines are very long (>10 km) lines of 2000+ individually baited hooks that drift close to the surface and are used to catch tuna, swordfish, halibut, etc. Crowder’s paper suggests that while each individual longline hook has low probability of catching a turtle, because of their number and ubiquitousness, they catch many many turtles.

    2. Gillnets: These are giant rectangular mesh nets, either stationary or drifting, that catch marine life indiscriminately. There’s not much that can be done by way of reducingsea turtle catch in gillnets, except monitoring, observation and just using less of them

    3. Trawls: Big funnel shaped bags that catch fish. Bottom trawling fishing boats used to, and still catch turtles at an alarming rate. Trawls are now (at least in the U.S and other “developed” countries) required to be outfitted with Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDS) to let turtles swim to safety.

    4. Purse Seines: These are weighted on the bottom and float at the corners. They are indiscriminate, and especially hard on dolphins. It appears that mitigation efforts aimed at reducing dolphin mortality have the unintended effect of increasing sea turtle catch. Battle of the cute species!!

    Take home message? Catching fish causes a lot of turtles to die. While trawl fishing is the worst culprit, it is also the most studied and the technique for which a viable mitigation strategy exists. THe other kinds of fishing are less studied, and there is precious little that can be done to avoid sea turtle bycatch.

    Happy fishing!