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Marine Turtle Newsletter 106:24, © 2004

Marine Turtle Newsletter-Online

A Call for the Conservation of the Leatherback Turtles


There are widely held and grave concerns regarding the role of pelagic marine fisheries in the precipitous decline of populations of Pacific leatherback turtles. As part of this focus, a petition entitled “A Call for the Conservation of the Leatherback Turtles” was signed by 351 participants from 41 countries during the XXIV Sea Turtle Symposium, held in Costa Rica, and delivered to the Cost Rican President:

Recognizing that the main threats to Pacific leatherback turtles come from the pelagic longlines and gillnet fisheries that are killing thousands of them, we, the participants at the XXIV Sea Turtle Symposium, call upon the Costa Rican government to take the lead on the international movement intended to establish a moratorium on Pacific fishing arts that harm leatherback turtles. Such a moratorium should be based on the scientific information related to their migratory patterns.

Freddy Pacheco National University, Costa Rica (E-mail: fpacheco@una.ac.cr).