Posted by admin | 10.06.2011 | Conservation, Marine Science, Turtle Talk

Targeting Turtle Trouble Spots

A recent report is seeking to sharpen the conservation focus on sea turtles by specifying the globally most threatened populations. Several leading organizations, including International Union for Conservation of Nature and Marine Turtle Specialist Group, have teamed up to create planetary picture allowing volunteers, conservations, and advocates to better target populations at greatest risk.

There seems to be an overwhelming problem in Asia, with almost half of the populations found in the northern Indian Ocean. One of the contributors, Dr. Choudhury, hopes that this will serve as a “wake-up call for the authorities” especially since many species use India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh as key nesting sites. Other regions that were singled out were western Central America, the Northeast Atlantic, and the North Pacific.

Other results of the report are not new. They confirmed that the most significant threats are fisheries bycatch and direct harvest, issues long faced by most countries including developed nations. One of the goals of the study was to help target conservation efforts internationally, so that resources are used most effectively.

Despite the seemingly gloomy new, the study also pinpointed 12 global populations deemed to be healthy. Australia came out on top, with greens and hawksbills doing well around the island nation. Other islands in Polynesia and Micronesia seem to have healthy populations of greens. Greens, in general, seemed to be doing the best, with “healthy” in Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil in addition to those previously listed.