Conservationists Raise Alarm for Pacific Leatherback
Posted August 22nd, 2007 by JaneStevens
Jane Stevens, from Monterey Bay, CA. Now that China's Yangtze River dolphins have been declared extinct, conservationists in the South Pacific are worred that leatherback turtles aren't far behind, according to an Inter-Press Service story published today. "The leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), the largest living species of sea turtle, is said to be in grave danger in Pacific waters. It could be the first of the turtle species to disappear from this part of the world unless remedial action is taken, says Penina Solomona, the Regional Marine Officer with the WWF South Pacific Programme."
TOPP's Scott Benson recently spent a couple of weeks in Indonesia putting satellite tags on leatherbacks. The photo above shows all the leatherback nests from one night. (For those of us who went to Costa Rica earlier this year for the annual nesting of eastern Pacific leatherbacks, who are the most endangered, it seems like a lot of nests.) As soon as our tracking system gets back up to speed (we're fixing some serious computer problems), we'll show you where those turtles are.
Today's story on the IPS site continues: "Asked if parallels could be drawn between the whitefin dolphins and turtles in the South Pacific, Penina answered in the affirmative saying that polluted waters, intensive fishing activity and busy shipping traffic posed similar threats to turtles.
"The Pacific can relate to an example of a cultural icon becoming extinct through human activity (and) it may be an opportunity to engage people's emotions to the possibility that their actions can drive an animal to extinction," she said.
Craig Morley, a conservation biologist at the University if the South Pacific, said the whitefin dolphins were driven to extinction first by relentless hunting, and then by habitat destruction such as building dams and draining water for agriculture as well as pollution.
Morley said that the same destructive pattern could be seen in the Pacific.
Asked if turtles were similarly threatened Morley said: "Absolutely. Once a species fall below a certain population size, they can fall into what we call an extinction vortex -- driven by things like loss of genetic diversity (which increases the likelihood for disease and genetic inbreeding), demographic imbalances (more of one sex than another), the allee affect (when they can’t find reproductive partners), and they are more prone to environmental stochasticity (floods, droughts etc).
"The trouble is we are not learning the lessons of the past or what happens elsewhere," Morley said.
There's a direct connection between people who care about leatherback turtles in the South Pacific and people in California. The turtles Benson tagged last year in Indonesia are on their way to Monterey Bay and Oregon, and he's on the lookout for them. (Let us know if you see any!) So, If the turtles disappear from the South Pacific, they won't show up in Monterey Bay anymore, either.
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