Editor's Note: No Sea Turtle is an Island

A Nazca booby rests on the back of an olive ridley turtle who simultaneously provides shelter to small fish from airborne predators in Costa Rican waters. © Dhritiman Mukherjee

Wise men and women throughout history have shown us that, “there is power in unity and there is power in numbers” (Martin Luther King Jr., 1963). That is certainly the case with the State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT) program, the world’s largest volunteer network of sea turtle researchers, conservationists, and enthusiasts. This volume of SWOT Report unifies an enormous cast: from the hundreds of researchers in more than 20 countries, whose collective efforts can be seen in the first-ever global-scale map of loggerhead sea turtle telemetry, to the beach workers from the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) and beyond, whose labors are seen in this issue’s maps of sea turtle biogeography.

As you peruse these cartographic works of art, reflect for a moment on the time, effort, and passion that went into each of those tiny, tinted polygons of telemetry data or the myriad multicolored circles of nest abundance. Together they represent the labors of a multitude of beach workers, synergistically amassed to bring big-picture visualizations of sea turtle natural history to life as never before. As the famous saying goes, “No man is an island,” and when our personal efforts are bridged and bound to one another by a common vision, the results have global-scale impacts far beyond the sum of the individual contributions.

And no sea turtle is an island either. Sea turtles are tiny threads in an immeasurably complex tapestry of global biodiversity. We’ve seen some encouraging reports of stable and even growing sea turtle populations in recent years, reflected in the improved status of some on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species. Yet we must never forget that permanent recovery of sea turtles can be ensured only when all the threads of a turtle’s existence are intact; when the oceans are healthy; and when nesting beaches, seagrass pastures, coral reefs, and migratory pathways remain safe and usable.

It was 65°F (18.3°C) in Antarctica as I wrote this, and an iceberg twice the size of Washington, DC, just broke off the Pine Island glacier there. Australia is reeling from devastating fires. Antiquated fishing techniques and management are pushing fish stocks to the brink of extinction and incidentally killing millions of turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals. All age classes of sea turtles everywhere are ingesting plastics. Drastic weather, rising and warming seas, and human development of once pristine ecosystems have become the norm. The tapestry is rapidly becoming threadbare.

So it is urgent that we now focus on saving not only sea turtles, but also the seas that sustain them. Changing the countless human behaviors that threaten the oceans is a complicated challenge, but it begins with a simple question— “How can I do better?” I urge our global “SWOT Team” to ask that question, begin the conversation, and use the power of our numbers and unity to move the needle on ocean health.

Roderic B. Mast
Chief Editor