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GLOBAL

Bill Protects World’s Marine Turtles

Members of the House Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans (USA) heard from researchers, conservation activists and government officials who mostly supported the Marine Turtle Conservation Act, which has 15 co-sponsors and won Senate approval in October. The legislation would authorize $5 million annually, through 2009, to help them. The bill would fund public outreach and the recovery and protection of marine turtles by providing financial assistance for projects in foreign countries to protect nesting marine turtles and their habitats. Source: TCPalm.com, 29 March 2004.

Tracking of Atlantic’s Endangered Sea Turtles

Scientists around the globe are leading research which seeks to unlock the migratory secrets of endangered marine turtles at all four corners of the Atlantic this summer. Marine turtles are being tracked via satellite from the Cape Verde Islands, Caribbean, Cyprus, Turkey and SE USA. Members of the public are invited to log on and follow their progress on a ground breaking free access website provided by USA non-profit SEATURTLE.ORG <https://seaturtle.org/tracking>. Source SEATURTLE.ORG Press Release, 29th June 2004.

AFRICA

US Gives Condition for Nigerian Shrimp Imports

The United States has banned the importation of shrimp harvested in Nigeria, following a determination by the Department of State that Nigeria no longer meets the requirements set by law related to the protection of sea turtles in the course of commercial shrimp harvesting. The import prohibition is however expected to be for a brief period as the Department of State has offered to work closely with the Government of Nigeria to address concerns that led to this determination. Source: This Day, 5 February 2004.

Congo Plans to Safeguard Biodiversity

The Republic of Congo announced plans to expand its protected area network for the purpose of further conserving the region’s immense biodiversity, one of the key goals of the 7th Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-7). The Congo government plans to connect the protected areas of Conkouati-Douli National Park in Congo and Mayumba National Park in Gabon to protect the globally important beaches, swamps, and coastal forests of Congo’s coastline, including some of the most important sea turtle nesting areas in the world. Source: Wildlife Conservation Society press release, 19 February 2004.

THE AMERICAS

US Pacific Longline Fishing is Banned

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued new rules banning California longline fishing from targeting swordfish from a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean. The final rule comes on the heels of an August 2003 decision by the federal Ninth Circuit Court concurring with environmentalists that the Fisheries Service had failed to conduct the proper environmental review before issuing permits to the fishery. The banning of longlining in this area will protect endangered sea turtles in the Pacific and close a significant loophole that was undermining other conservation efforts. Specifically, the new rules, designed to protect endangered leatherback and green sea turtles, prohibit vessels that land their catch in California from conducting shallow swordfish longline sets on the high seas in the Pacific Ocean east of 150º W. longitude to protect endangered leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles. Source: Sea Turtle Restoration Project press release, 11 March 2004.

New Seascape Initiative Stretches from Costa Rica to Ecuador

Four Latin American nations with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and others are consolidating a marine protected area stretching from Costa Rica to Ecuador to help safeguard some of the world’s richest marine habitats and dozens of endangered species. The project, known as the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape, covers 211 million hectares and extends from Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park to Ecuador’s Galapagos Island National Park and Marine Reserve. Along the way, the Seascape helps link marine protected areas in Panama and Colombia. Source: Conservation International, 24 February 2004.

Activist: Dredge May Kill Turtles

The upcoming dredging of Key West harbor will suck one million cubic yards of built-up sand, stones and silt from the sea floor to restore the city’s shipping channel to its original depth. With the dredge’s start-date days away, Richie Moretti, head of the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, is trying frantically to persuade the project’s masterminds to trawl the area for turtles before using a hopper dredge for part of the cleanup. Hopper dredges, which have suction arms that vacuum up silt and send it through giant rotating blades, are known to kill turtles. Moretti recently hired a Tallahassee-based lawyer to advance his case. But representatives from the Navy, the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said painstaking reasoning went into the decisions to use a hopper dredge and not to trawl. Source: Miami Herald, 24 Feb 2004.

Three Wildlife Species Chosen for Trinational Protection

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)—an organization created by the NAFTA environmental side accord—announced the first three wildlife species to be safeguarded under a new trinational effort to protect species of common conservation concern in North America. The leatherback turtle, humpback whale and pink-footed shearwater were jointly selected by the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States, in cooperation with environmental groups, as pilot species for the first North American Conservation Action Plans. The action plans will establish a common conservation approach across the continent, and will act to reduce threats, share expertise and provide key information to the public and wildlife officers. Source: North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 24 March 2004.

Loggerheads Nesting Earlier Due to Warmer Ocean Temperatures

Loggerhead sea turtles along Florida’s Atlantic coast are laying their eggs about 10 days earlier than they did 15 years ago, a change that a University of Central Florida researcher believes was caused by global warming. John Weishampel found that as the nearshore ocean temperatures increased by nearly 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit from 1989 to 2003, the median nesting dates for loggerheads gradually became earlier. In 2003, half of the turtles’ nests were laid before June 19, compared with before June 29 in 1989. The earlier nesting dates raise several questions that need to be addressed in future studies, Weishampel said, including whether the turtles’ food supplies will be as plentiful earlier in the season and whether the hatchlings are less likely to survive. Source: AScribe, 6 April 2004.

Sea Turtle Strandings Declining in Texas

Fewer dead and injured sea turtles washed ashore on Texas beaches last year than in the past decade, according to federal data. In 2003, biologists recorded 228 sea turtle strandings, the lowest number since the 197 documented in 1993. Biologists said that this is likely to be the result of efforts to save the species. Nature has also cooperated. Last year, there wasn’t a freezing snap in South Texas, which can stun the cold-blooded creatures, causing them to die and come ashore. Source: Houston Chronicle, March 4 2004.

State Implores Crabbers to Help Protect Sea Turtles

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources wants commercial crabbers to remove the second “trailer” float from the trap to help prevent endangered turtles from becoming tangled in the lines. So far this month, two leatherback turtles have become entangled in the line between the first float and the second float. Recreational crabbers are being asked to not put traps out in the ocean until the leatherback turtles have passed through the area, probably by the end of May. Source: Island Packet, 20 April 2004.

Duke Study Gives Measure of Sea Turtle Casualties by Longline Fishing

More than 250,000 loggerhead and 60,000 leatherback turtles are estimated to be inadvertently snared each year by commercial longline fishing, with up to tens of thousands dying, according to the first global assessment of the problem. The study was published in March in Ecology Letters. Source: Duke University press release, 8 March 2004.

ASIA

Indonesia to Protect Top Nesting Site for Critically Endangered Turtles

The most important nesting site in the Pacific for the critically endangered leatherback turtle will be protected, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has said. A pledge to create a crucial marine protected area in the north coast of Papua to include this site was announced by the government of Indonesia during the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. WWF stressed that, with this commitment and other protection measures recently adopted, the Indonesian government has recognized the need to protect and restore the sea turtle populations in the country’s waters. The Indonesian government has also called on fishing nations and the fishing industry to find solutions to reduce the accidental catch of turtles by hooks or nets. Source: WWF press release, 16 February 2004.

EUROPE

MEPs Urge Greece to Save Turtles of Zakynthos

Two members of the European Parliament visited Greece in an attempt to persuade authorities to take steps to save the loggerhead turtles of Zakynthos. Alarmed by reports of increasing anarchy on the Zakynthian beaches during peak nesting season following a nine-week (and counting) work stoppage by staff at the Zakynthos National Marine Park (ZNMP), Irish MEP Nuala Ahern and German MEP Irene Soltwedel urged the environment ministry to take action. The beach wardens of the ZNMP are on strike, having not received their salaries since last June. As a result of the park closure, chaos reigns on the coastline as locals take advantage of the lack of authority to litter the beaches with sunbeds and umbrellas, to remove sand illegally and to drive along the nesting beaches. There has also been a proliferation of illegal building. Medasset and Euronatur have started an international signature collection campaign requesting that the authorities guarantee yearly funding for all twenty-five National Parks in Greece and provide them with the currently absent legal authority to enforce conservation laws within their boundaries. If you would like to sign, go to <http://www.medasset. gr/english_petition.htm> Source: Athens News, 2 July 2004.