Essay On The Loggerhead Sea Turtle

The loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, is a threatened species with a highly migratory behavior and shifting habitat requirements depending on maturity (NMFS and USFWS 1998). The loggerhead nesting grounds are typically in warm temperate regions (NMFS and USFWS 1998).

In the original listing from USFWS (1978), the loggerhead sea turtle was listed as threatened throughout all of its range. The document goes on to state that one of the main threats to the loggerhead sea turtle was that it was being harvested for the shell or as food; the eggs were considered a desired food item and protein source. Regulations were put in place to protect the loggerhead sea turtle such as prohibition of foreign commerce, importation, and exportation (USFWS 1978). One factor that is considered a past threat was the inadequacy of any existing regulations regarding the loggerhead sea turtle (USFWS 1978). Since the listing of the loggerhead sea turtle, many regulations and recovery plans have been made. However, many of the threats described in the loggerhead sea turtle listing of 1978 are still threats that are present today. These threats include human expansion reducing nesting habitat through beach development including artificial light and seawall construction, disease, and predation of hatchlings (USFWS 1978). Today the current status for the loggerhead sea turtle is unchanged and they remain listed as a threatened species (NMFS and USFWS 2007). This was determined in the most recent 5 year review using molecular markers to help define the genetic structure of the population (NMFS and USFWS 2007).

One of the highest priority threats against the loggerhead sea turtle is bycatch (Figure 1). The loggerhead sea turtles are often caught in larg...

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...tion (SQE) as a function of quasi-extinction threshold

(QET) for the Northwest Atlantic Ocean DPS. QET is defined as the proportion of the current female abundance. Dotted lines indicate SQE = 0.3, which was adapted as the threshold for the analysis. NRU = Northern Recovery Unit, PFRU = Peninsular Florida Recovery Unit, NGMRU

= Northern Gulf of Mexico Recovery Unit, and GCRU = Greater Caribbean Recovery Unit. From Conant et al. 2009.

Figure 3. Changes in the numbers of nesting females at nesting beaches for the Northwest

Atlantic Ocean DPS. The number of nesting females was computed from the observed number of nests divided by the mean clutch frequency (5 yr-1; Table 1). NRU = Northern Recovery Unit,

PFRU = Peninsular Florida Recovery Unit, NGMRU = Northern Gulf of Mexico Recovery Unit, and GCRU = Greater Caribbean Recovery Unit. From Conant et al. 2009.