The endangered loggerhead sea turtle nests in the southern United States and throughout the Caribbean.
Sea turtles are ancient creatures, with fossils dating back 150 million years, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy in Gainesville, Florida. These air-breathing reptiles live in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. After birth, males spend their entire lives at sea. At sexual maturity, pregnant females swim back to their birthplace beaches to lay their nests. From giant leatherbacks to small olive ridleys, all sea turtles suffer from storms, nest predation and increased human activity.
Hazards and Legal Protection
Possibly only one in 1,000 to 10,000 hatchlings lives to adulthood. In the last 100 years, sea turtles have experienced a steep population decline due to increased human activity along with the natural hazards that have always affected their survival. Regulations, volunteer programs, research and education work together toward sea turtle conservation.
The U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 designates most sea turtles as endangered, and loggerheads as threatened. Therefore, they are protected against any harassment or interference. Anyone caught poaching -- stealing eggs from a nest -- is subject to a jail sentence.
Research
The Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, has "monitored 49,700 turtle activities" since the early 1980s and observed over one million hatchlings crawl to the sea. Collected data show that Sarasota County loggerhead population declined and recovered somewhat, while green turtle nests, although rare, have increased. Mote also monitors coastal ecology and lingering effects from the 2010 oil spill near Louisiana.
Education
In Jekyll Island, the Georgia Sea Turtle Center's 2010 lighting workshop educated beach property owners about proper lighting during nesting season (April through October in the United States) and offered sample "turtle-friendly lighting." Florida Power and Light advises customers to use yellow low-pressure sodium vapor lights outdoors, as opposed to mercury vapor, white incandescent, fluorescent and other types. Putting dark tinting on windows and turning off beachfront lights significantly reduce turtle mortality.
Local Volunteerism
During nesting season, volunteers walk a stretch of beach at sunrise. They look for new nests or false crawls --- turtle tracks but no nest --- and hatchling tracks later in the season. Hatchlings use moonlight to guide them to the sea. Sometimes they are distracted the wrong way by bright lights, sometimes even onto roads. Turtle patrol volunteers report their findings to local authorities, usually biologists, who are permitted to handle turtles and eggs. Locating disoriented live hatchlings allows biologists to release the little ones safely to the sea at night.
The Sea Turtle Conservancy's Adopt a Turtle program gives people a chance to donate toward habitat protection, education and research. Each participant follows the travels of a particular turtle through satellite tracking.
Travel Volunteerism
For people with an adventurous spirit, the Sea Turtle Conservancy runs programs of "sustainable travel that helps conservation." Volunteers travel to Cost Rica to participate in nightly walks on Tortuguero Beach on the Caribbean Sea to count turtle tracks and help tag leatherback or green turtles.
A Controversial Management Program
Playa Ostional, on Costa Rica's Pacific side, manages the olive ridley turtle population with a regulated, legal egg harvest. Here, olive ridleys nest en masse constantly for days, trampling and destroying their first nests. Local people harvest from the first clutches of eggs, which would be lost anyway. People make money from the harvest, and new nests are not contaminated by bacteria from destroyed eggs. False information about the "world shame" traveled the world via email without benefit of facts.
Tags: Turtle Conservancy, human activity, increased human, increased human activity, nesting season, olive ridleys