By BRYAN WALLACE and BRIAN HUTCHINSON

If you are reading this magazine, you probably already know that leatherback turtles face threats to their survival worldwide and that they have become a high conservation priority in many places. Indeed, if we are to ensure the long-term survival of this species, leatherback conservation efforts are needed in every place they are found. Considering that there are 768 leatherback nesting sites from 65 countries documented in the SWOT database (as of 2014) and that leatherbacks’ marine habitats span all major ocean basins, this goal is overwhelming and, likely, impossible. Thus, where should we focus our efforts to conserve the leatherback so we are most effective?

In past years, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission has assessed sea turtle status globally by using the IUCN Red List categories and criteria. The Red List is useful for comparing the risk of extinction for individual species. But for a species that is widely distributed and that has many different populations exposed to different environments and threats, such global assessments have not characterized differences in true extinction risk at the population level.

To address this issue, in 2013, the MTSG published a new Red List assessment of the leatherback turtle to provide accurate, up-to date information about the status of leatherback populations worldwide. In a first for any sea turtle Red List assessment, each leatherback subpopulation was considered individually using Red List criteria to determine its conservation status. The results describe the wide variation in leatherback status by region. They also highlight subpopulations that have declined greatly over time or that are very small or geographically restricted.

Such assessments are important, because leatherback subpopulations are considered to be genetically and demographically distinct from one another. If a subpopulation becomes extinct, its ecosystem role and contributions to the genetic diversity of the global leatherback population will be lost forever. Those important nuances were lost in previous assessments of the leatherback that were done only at the global, species level.

Not only does the new assessment provide a more actionable overview of leatherback status, but also it has helped lay the groundwork for improved Red List assessments of all sea turtle species in the future. Those subpopulation-level assessments allow us to compare the past and present status of leatherbacks so we can identify causes of different population trajectories. In some parts of the world, leatherback populations are relatively stable, even increasing, thanks to effective conservation efforts that protect turtles and reduce threats on nesting beaches and in the water.

However, this good news does not mean that those leatherback populations will not continue to require conservation action. Populations that are at real risk of extinction in the near future provide a cautionary tale about populations that are currently stable. Sea turtle populations can decline much more rapidly than they can be rebuilt, so conservation gains must be maintained—if not increased—to ensure healthy populations.

The following are the results of the 2013 Red List assessment of the leatherback turtle. The complete assessments are available online at https://www.iucnredlist.org/details/6494/0.

GLOBAL—VULNERABLE

The leatherback turtle is categorized as vulnerable globally for two reasons: (a) the global population of leatherbacks is estimated to have declined by 40.1 percent over the past three generations (estimated at 120 years), and (b) the causes of the decline are not reversible and have not ceased. Although the leatherback’s status as vulnerable globally means that the species as a whole is considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild, this status actually represents an improvement from the previous global listing as critically endangered in 2000. The earlier assessment focused on populations in the Pacific Ocean; data from Atlantic populations were not available at the time.

This article originally appeared in SWOT Report, vol. 11 (2016). Click here to download the entire article as a PDF.