Importance Of Protecting Sea Turtles

To truly protect sea turtles around the world, many different countries and cultures must cooperate and share responsibilities. International laws and agreements, research, and the work of dedicated organizations and individuals each must play a part. Long-term protection of sea turtles also means developing solutions that reduce reliance on management methods requiring direct human involvement such as moving nests or raising hatchlings in captivity. If sea turtles cannot survive and reproduce on their own, without the help from humans, then they are doomed. Feeding and nesting grounds must be protected, and a public wildlife conservation ethic must be fostered that can withstand gaps in government regulations, pressure from private interests,

If sea turtles were going extinct because of geological or climatic changes, there would be very little we could do to help. Some immediate goals for protecting sea turtles include: 1) Cracking down on illegal international trade in sea turtles and their products by enforcing laws and agreements, 2) Decrease the turtle deaths caused by commercial fishing through enforcement of Turtle Excluder Device (TED) and gill net regulations, 3) Protect nesting beaches by establishing parks and refuges or through regulations combined with public education initiatives, 4) Eliminate disturbances at nesting beaches by decreasing artificial lighting, halting beach armoring, regulating beach nourishment and limiting the impacts of people on the beach, 5) Enforce national and international laws to minimize the dumping of pollutants and solid waste into the ocean and near shore waters, 6) Continue research and monitoring activities so that the population can be monitored and conservation efforts can be focused where they are most needed, and 7) Increase public awareness and community participation in sea turtle conservation through educational programs such as

We might just be saving ourselves too. Here are some major ecological effects of sea turtle extinction: 1) sea turtles, especially green sea turtles, are one of the very few animals to eat sea grass. Like normal lawn grass, sea grass needs to be constantly cut short to be healthy and help it grow across the sea floor rather than just getting longer grass blades. Sea turtles and manatees act as grazing animals that cut the grass short and help maintain the health of the sea grass beds. Over the past decades, there has been a decline in sea grass beds. This decline may be linked to the lower numbers of sea turtles. Sea grass beds are important because they provide breeding and developmental grounds for many species of fish, shellfish, and crustaceans. Without sea grass beds, many marine species humans harvest would be lost, as would the lower levels of the food chain. The reactions could result in many more marine species being lost and eventually impacting humans. So if sea turtles go extinct, there would be a serious decline in sea grass beds and a decline in all other species dependent upon the grass beds for survival. All parts of ecosystem are important, if