Who?

According to the ICUN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), which is the “global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it”, six out of seven species of sea turtles are vulnerable or endangered. The seventh species, the flatback sea turtle, is so mysterious that they can’t even determine its status and label it as “data deficient”.

 

Why?

How did sea turtles become so imperiled? Why is this happening? The answer can be boiled down into two sections. One is due to the turtle’s life history and the other is humanity.

This may sound strange, but when you look at how sea turtles live and reproduce it reveals why they are in trouble. One reason for this is that sea turtles take a very long time to reach maturity and some turtles don’t lay eggs till they are forty years old! These animals take an incredibly long time to reproduce and it can take decades upon decades for a population to grow. Another reason is that at birth, the odds are stacked against baby sea turtles. It is estimated that only one out of one thousand baby turtles will make it to adulthood. This is because they must survive many, many years before they are mature and also have to contend with an ocean full of predators. Please check out this awesome animated video by TED-Ed for a great explanation about the life cycle of sea turtles and the challenges they face!

 

This brings us to the human element. Humans have used sea turtles as a food source since man first inhabited tropical coastal areas. Consuming turtle eggs and harvesting them for their meat, humans soon began to overexploit the sea turtles. As mentioned before, sea turtles already have a tough time as it is, but when factoring in humans and their consumption, things start to look bleak. Historically many subpopulations of sea turtles have collapsed due to over-harvesting and in some places where turtles once nested in the thousands, they are seldom seen.

Another way humans are impacting sea turtles is through pollution. The ocean may be huge but the things we put in it can have major impacts on sea life, specifically plastics. Plastics are very deadly for turtles, young and old. When plastics break apart into small pieces they can look just like plankton, a favorite food of baby sea turtles. When the small turtles ingest too much plastic they can form a blockage inside the turtle’s body and eventually kill them. For adult turtles, a plastic bag can look just like one of their favorite foods, jellyfish. When adult sea turtles consume plastic, they meet a similar fate as the young turtles, usually choking or dying of impaction.

This piece may not be very fun, but it highlights real issues that sea turtles face. Come back and read my next entry for ways that you help save sea turtles and do your part to keep them from going extinct!