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Reuters/Ricardo Tapilatu/University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the State University of Papua (UNIPA) in Indonesia/Handou
Turtle researcher, Ricardo Tapilatu tags a female leatherback turtle who just laid eggs on a beach in New Guinea in this 2012 photograph.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The giant Pacific leatherback turtle, known for its arduous 6,000-mile ocean trek from the U.S. West Coast to breeding grounds in Indonesia, could go extinct within 20 years as its population continues to plummet, scientists say.
"Sea turtles have been around about 100 million years and survived the extinction of the dinosaurs but are struggling to survive the impact of humans," said reproductive biologist Thane Wibbels of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), a member of a research team studying the fate of these reptiles.
The leatherback — the world's largest turtle — can grow to six feet long and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds.
A study published this week in the Ecological Society of America's scientific journal Ecosphere estimates that only about 500 leatherbacks now nest at their last large nesting site in the Pacific, down from thousands previously. The study tracked the turtle's ongoing population decline since the 1980s.
"If the decline continues, leatherback turtles will become extinct in the Pacific Ocean within 20 years," Wibbels said.
The Pacific leatherback braves a transpacific journey that is one of the longest migrations in nature. Experts say its continued existence is imperiled by threats like climate change, plastic pollution, fishing methods, predation and human hunting.
In the past 27 years, the numbers of western Pacific leatherback turtles have dropped by 78 percent, making it critically endangered, said Ricardo Tapilatu, a turtle researcher at UAB and the State University of Papua in Indonesia. He has studied the turtles at their last remaining refuge, the remote Bird's Head Peninsula on New Guinea.
State University Of Papua / Reuters
Leatherback turtle hatchlings head into the sea on the island of New Guinea in this 2012 photograph.
More than 75 percent of all western Pacific leatherback nesting occurs there, numbering 489 turtles in the last breeding season, the researchers said. The turtles forage across the Pacific as far away as the U.S. coast of California, Oregon, and Washington state.
The research team also included scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service and the World Wildlife Fund Indonesia.
The turtles can dive as deep as 4,000 feet. To survive the cold depths, the leatherback can control its temperature, staying warmer than surrounding waters. They feed on jellyfish, eating hundreds a day.
The leathery shell feels like tire tread and it is distinctively different from hard-shell sea turtles.
Their exact lifespan is unknown, but is believed to be up to 80 years. It is difficult to determine since males never return to the beaches, living their lives in the sea.
Of the four primary Pacific nesting places of the past century, the Malaysian population is extinct, and the Mexico and Central American populations have fallen 95 percent.
The leatherback is the only sea turtle that lives in open ocean, negotiating numerous dangers along the way.
"They migrate 6,000 miles in seven months, and then back, going through the territorial waters of at least 20 countries. There is constant danger of being caught and killed," said Tapilatu, a native of New Guinea.
For example, fishermen's drift nets and long-lines can snag the air-breathing turtle, drowning it. Humans also introduced wild hogs and dogs to the remote beaches where they nest. The hogs are especially voracious predators of turtle eggs.
Near the nesting site, local fishermen still capture and slaughter leatherbacks to consume the meat. A local tribe has historically harvested about 100 turtles per year, as well as eggs.
On some beaches, as few as 20 percent of the eggs hatch due to increased beach temperatures, which could worsen with climate change, Tapilatu said. Sand temperature determines the gender of hatchlings, with higher temperatures favoring females.
There is hope of restoring the population of the endangered reptiles, the researchers said. The Atlantic leatherback, which is genetically different from the Pacific turtles, has made a comeback through mutual country agreements to ban harvesting adults or eggs on beaches.
Tapilatu said he plans to return to New Guinea to help replicate that success story with the leatherback turtles struggling to survive in his Pacific home.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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sad story...man will be the cause of his own extiction
They look delicious.
All of this is the result of human activity. It is reversible, but only if we care enough to make the effort. Due to our anthropocentric mindset, it doesn't seem likely. "In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught." - Baba Dioum
Sorry to say, but they're doomed. Drag nets are bad enough, but with the natives bringing the hogs to the islands and killing 100 a year on their own - forget about it.
I lived in Micronesia for over a year and I'm here to tell you, those islanders LOVE pork! So those hogs aren't going away anytime soon. They'd rather have the hogs than the turtles, no doubt about that.
Hey. No problem. Let the "tribes" do anything they want if it's their "culture". (Does that apply to Catholic priests? They can molest all the little boys they want if it's their "culture"??)
The public school system has a much worse track record of molesting children than the church ever could. Also church is voluntary but sending your kid to school is mandatory by law.
West Papua is under Indonesian administration according to the UN, the island is actually the northern part of the Australian continent. The turtles are a victim of a US scheme in 1962 to mine West Papua, along with the rain forests and 100,000's of people killed to silence their plead for freedom.
The US businessman Robert Lovett and his friend McGeorge Bundy tricked President Kennedy into the deal, a plan to force the Dutch to sign a UN trusteeship agreement which the public was not told was a trusteeship agreement. Today America has its gold & copper mine and the Papuan people are being ethnically replaced by Indonesians. It is tragic that Chapter XII of the UN Charter does not force lawyers to use the word “trusteeship” in a trusteeship agreement, but article 85 of the UN Charter is the only way that the General Assembly in resolution 1752 (XVII) instead of the Security Council was able to direct UN forces to occupy the colony.
Little wonder France and others refused to vote and Senegal pleaded for its vote to be recorded as opposing res. 1752 (XVII) but the deal was done and for fifty years people as well as turtles have been dying…
" 100,000's of people killed to silence their plead for freedom."
And how many turtles would those people have eaten?Come on people. The Atlantic leatherbacks turned around their population by intervention in 'harvesting'. Lets have some optimism here.
It's your friends the Indonesians who have been killing the turtles and the people.. The turtles have prospered for thousands of years on Papuan beaches and in Papuan waters; it's only since the Indonesians came to Papua that the turtles have been harvested towards extinction...
I knew a young woman in college who claimed she had been eaten by a big turtle. Several times.
i dont care
Human destroy everything they touch. So sad.
Is there any species on earth plant or animal that has never gone extinct? Man kind swill be extinct one day along with every other species on earth now.
Would it not make sense for a conservation group to start raising the hatchlings until they are large enough to survive predators and then release them back into the wild to help them survive until their numbers are back to where they should be.
Same old song.
I love sea turtles, all of them.
Little known tidbit about sea turtles in symbology. It's common to see them as phallic symbols but how often do you hear about they represent the birth of the children of the light of Earth being born buried alive. Ever see Turtle the Incredible Journey ? Great film. Makes me cry every time. Run babies run.
I know in SC, we do a lot of Nest relocation. Why can't that be done to encourage the turtles to return to "different beaches" that can be protected? We will have teams collect nests and relocate them to secluded areas away from predators, AND MAN which allows for almost 100% hatching. The following cycles the breeding females do return to the alternate beach.
Someone said that the turtles are doomed but it's worse than that. Unless humanity gets on board most life is doomed. There is enough plastic trash in the ocean alone to cause the extinction of many creatures to include this turtle. Climate change is killing off life as well. Greed and competition for resources and power are destroying life on the planet and therefore people as well. I'm waiting on a good plague to take the human population down by 6 or 7 billion. It just needs to happen and if it means my death to bring the population down by that number then I am happy to go back into this Earth. There are too many humans and we are destroying this planet.
So the climate never changed in over 100 million years? Bull@!$%#.
Be honest with this article. Point out all the real man made causes like hunting, habitat destruction, actual pollution, etc.
After 100 million years that saw everything from warmer temperatures than the present to ice ages, climate change is not much of a concern for these turtles.
Your overall point is correct however your logic on climate change is flawed. Yes, over 100 million years the climate has changed, however given a time scale of say 1000-10000 years of gradual change the animals would have altered there nesting areas in order to allow egg development that is not possible for these animals over 100 or 200 years considering that they are reptiles and that time period only represents ~5 generations. We humans are much smarter than turtles but it still takes us at least two generations to significantly alter our way of life.
2,000 pounds. That’s alot of turtle soup. Seriously, here’s a solution to increase their numbers. I saw where 80% of the hatchlings are eaten by predators as they rush across the beach. Now, if we can gather the hatchlings and release them out at sea, wouldn’t that increase the survival rate drastically?
If that's true, then maybe a simple covered barrier from the nest to the shoreline would work - a baby turtle tunnel?