Leatherback Turtle Numbers In Freefall In California; Down 80% In Less Than 30 Years

[hatrack]

In less than 30 years, the number of western Pacific leatherbacks in the foraging population off of California plummeted 80% and a recent study co-authored by Benson shows a 5.6% annual decline — almost identical to the decline documented thousands of miles away on nesting beaches. About 1,400 adult females were counted on western Pacific nesting beaches, down from tens of thousands of turtles a few decades ago, and there are as few as 50 foraging off California, Benson said.

If nothing changes, scientists say, the leatherbacks — creatures that can weigh half as much as a compact car and have 4-foot-long flippers — could be gone from the U.S. West Coast within three decades, a demise brought on by indiscriminate international fishing, the decimation of nesting grounds and climate change. “The turtles were there and we finally started paying attention,” said Jim Harvey, director of San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories at San Jose State University and the study’s co-author. “We got into looking at the story just as the story was ending.”

The study provides critical, but devastating, new population information that doesn’t bode well for the leatherbacks, said Daniel Pauly, a fisheries professor at the University of British Columbia and an international expert on reducing commercial fishing’s impact on marine ecosystems.

“If you find the decline in one place, that might have a number of causes, but if you find the same estimate of decline in two places that indicates something much more serious,” said Pauly, who was not involved in the study. “They are really in big trouble.” NOAA launched an aggressive initiative to save them in 2015 and will now release an updated action plan this month to inspire greater international cooperation in reducing the number of eggs pillaged on beaches and the number of Pacific leatherbacks entangled in commercial fishing gear.

EDIT

https://apnews.com/article/monterey-oceans-animals-turtles-fish-1f22c0d65a9cee41d32af153f1046502

[Blues Heron]

1. One more reason why meat is murder

Tragedy of the commons times eight billion.