Their Greatest Challenge in 100 Million Years: Facing the Hazards of Humankind

Sea turtles were born of the Cretaceous period and survived the extinction of the dinosaurs by 65 million years. Now they face the greatest peril of their 110-million-year existence: us. The progressively diminishing number of sea turtles on Earth is a direct result of human actions.

In the recent “Burning Issues Assessment” undertaken by the Marine Turtle Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union-IUCN, human behaviors that threaten sea turtles were identified, categorized, and prioritized. These hazards are defined as specific pressures that will result in declines in numbers, instigate local extinctions, and prevent the recovery of sea turtle populations.

Burning Issues Assessment—Hazards to Sea Turtles

Fisheries Impacts

Sea turtles virtually everywhere are impacted by fisheries—especially by longlines, gill nets, and trawls. Bycatch mortality, habitat destruction, and food web changes are the most severe of these impacts.

Coastal Development

Sea turtle habitats are degraded and destroyed by coastal development. This includes both shoreline and seafloor alterations such as nesting beach degradation, seafloor dredging, vessel traffic, construction, and alteration of vegetation.

Direct Take

Throughout the world, people kill sea turtles and consume their eggs for food and for products such as oil, leather, and shell.

Pollution and Pathogens

Marine pollution—plastics, discarded fishing gear, petroleum by products, and other debris—directly impact sea turtles through ingestion and entanglement. Light pollution disrupts nesting behavior and hatchling orientation, leading to hatchling mortality. Chemical pollutants can weaken sea turtles’ immune systems, making them susceptible to pathogens.

Climate Change

Global warming may impact natural sex ratios of hatchlings; escalate the frequency of extreme weather events; increase the likelihood of disease outbreaks among sea turtles; and result in loss of nesting beaches, destruction of coral reefs, and other alterations critical to sea turtle habitats and basic oceanographic processes.

The hazards are numerous, yet the mitigation of each one is possible and depends on human behavior—often simple changes to the actions we take. Ultimately, the fate of the world’s sea turtles depends on us.

This article originally appeared in SWOT Report, vol. 1 (2006). Click here to download the entire article as a PDF.