Conservation of Leatherback Sea Turtles the Focus of Special Issue

Newswise — Eleven years ago, a special issue from Chelonian Conservation and Biology focused on leatherback turtles changed the tide in a positive direction for species recovery. This year's special focus issue details the latest in research and efforts to restore the leatherback population across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Included in the issue are 22 contributions from 76 authors that address five major areas: conservation planning, population status, stock structure, demography, and fisheries interactions. One of the articles reports on the first-ever trans-Pacific satellite tracks of leatherbacks, another describes several previously undiscovered nesting sites as well as data indicating that the annual nesting numbers of leatherbacks in the western Pacific are substantially higher than previously believed.

The editors and others involved in creating the special issue are confident that it will be a valuable resource—a reference manual of sorts—for biologists, conservation managers, and turtle enthusiasts alike. They hope it might jump-start new efforts into conservation, as the first special focus issue did in 1996. In that issue, two papers sounding the alarm captured much of the attention. One chronicled the disappearance of the leatherbacks at the once-remarkable Terengganu rookery in Malaysia, and the other presented the grim potential of leatherback extinction for the entire Pacific Ocean. Though Pacific nesting populations had experienced precipitous declines, data also suggested that many rookeries in or near the Atlantic had been stable or increasing.

Since the first special focus issue, conservation efforts for leatherbacks have also been a principle concern in a variety of initiatives, including the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Leatherback recovery plan, Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP), and the North American Conservation Action Plan for the Pacific Leatherback Turtle. The move to a more multidisciplinary approach to conservation began in November 2003 in Bellagio, Italy, where experts in various professions met and created the Bellagio Blueprint for Action on Pacific Sea Turtles.

"The leatherback is a harbinger of ocean health and ecological balance; it represents the desperate challenges and threats that sea turtles face throughout the world and also the still-present opportunity that we have to preserve the beauty and health of marine ecosystems and biodiversity."

To read the full introduction to the special issue, click here: http://www.allenpress.com/pdf/ccab-06-01-23_1_6.pdf

Chelonian Conservation and Biology, the International Journal of Turtle and Tortoise Research is the official publication of the Chelonian Research Foundation (CRF). For more information about the society, please click here: http://www.chelonian.org