Sea turtles had been already navigating the oceans when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. However these historic creatures face an unsure future. All seven sea turtle species are presently endangered or threatened, notes Christine Figgener, a German-born conservation biologist who has been working in Costa Rica for the previous 16 years.
The variety of nesting females on the seashores she research is down greater than 80 % from when she first arrived there, Figgener stated in an interview with Yale Surroundings 360. It’s a part of a world decline pushed by an ideal storm of threats together with plastics within the ocean, chemical air pollution, industrial fishing, unregulated coastal improvement, and local weather change.
Figgener, 40, gained worldwide consideration when a video that she took of a sea turtle with a plastic straw lodged in its nostril went viral. The video helped launch a motion to remove plastic straws, which led to bans in Seattle and different cities world wide. However she says that’s solely a begin. “Our world, our oceans are a lot too complicated to say that if we simply cease consuming fish or utilizing plastic straws or what have you ever, sea turtles might be secure,” she stated.
Her new e book, My Life With Sea Turtles, might be revealed in Might. In it, she argues that good science on turtle ecology along with the need to wash up our oceans can save the endangered reptiles. “Turtles have lots going for them. They’re extremely resilient,” she advised e360. “If we all know sufficient in regards to the ecology of the species, the place they feed, the place they mate, we are able to give you profitable methods to avoid wasting them.”
Yale Surroundings 360: You’ve stated that once you had been in kindergarten, you advised your classmates that you just wished to be an ocean explorer. What’s it in regards to the sea that fascinated you each then and now?
Christine Figgener: We’ve explored a lot of the planet. There are not any clean areas left apart from the ocean. I really like mysteries, and that’s why I turned a researcher, to discover them. In a world the place we all know a lot, not realizing one thing creates a little bit of magic that all of us want. All of us stay for it.
e360: How did you come to check sea turtles particularly?
Figgener: My first curiosity was humpback whales. However as a grasp’s scholar I had the chance to go to Costa Rica to participate in a leatherback undertaking. I’d by no means seen a sea turtle nesting earlier than. It’s this historic creature bigger than I’m that goes by means of a life program that they’ve been following for hundreds of thousands of years. I rapidly fell in love with sea turtles and felt guilt, in a means, too. I imply they’ve been round for such an extremely lengthy time period. Right here they’re getting ready to extinction due to us people. I simply felt — that can’t occur, a minimum of not in my lifetime.
“We’ve seen child turtles getting caught in water bottles. We noticed a feminine who acquired lodged in a automobile tire and drowned.”
e360: What are among the challenges for nesting sea turtles in Costa Rica?
Figgener: One of many large points right here is that we nonetheless have folks consuming sea turtle meat and eggs, and they’re accumulating hawksbill shells, that are carved to make jewellery and different trinkets. We even have an enormous drawback with erosion [of beaches where turtles nest] resulting from rising sea ranges.
Nesting season is simply now starting right here on the Caribbean coast. We’re seeing one or two females nesting an evening. Once I first started my work right here [in 2007] we had been seeing 800 leatherback females nesting in a season. Now we’re all the way down to 50 to 150 on our seaside. That downward development is going on all around the world.
e360: You excavate sea turtle eggs and rebury them. Why?
Figgener: We do that as a result of poachers would see the tracks within the sand of the nesting females and discover the eggs if we left them the place they had been. Or in some instances the ocean would wash them away in the event that they had been buried too low down on the seaside. So what we do is we put somewhat bag underneath the feminine whereas she is laying the eggs and we take the eggs to a safer place to rebury them. We’re cautious to depart no observe, so the poachers gained’t know the place they’re.
e360: Your work turned broadly recognized once you launched a video of an olive ridley sea turtle with a plastic straw caught in his nostril. How did you come throughout him?
Figgener: We had been conducting a research of mating olive ridley turtles on the Pacific Coast. We measured the turtles, took genetic samples, after which put them again within the water. This one male had one thing unusual in his nostril. We thought at first it is perhaps a barnacle or a tube worm. However after we began pulling it out and snipped off somewhat piece, it turned clear that it was plastic straw.
When sea turtles feed, they swallow a number of seawater and expel it by means of their nostrils. We predict that the straw acquired caught within the nostril that means.
e360: Plastic straws are hardly the one hazard. Are you able to inform us about another belongings you’ve seen?
Figgener: We’ve seen child turtles getting caught in water bottles. We noticed a feminine who acquired lodged in a automobile tire and drowned. We’ve seen every kind of entanglements in plastic baggage and sacks. We noticed a sea turtle that had dragged a complete fishing rod onto the seaside.
As soon as, I watched this feminine leatherback turtle on our seaside making an attempt to put her eggs. She was urgent and urgent and nothing got here. Finally I felt with my arms in her cloaca, and there was one thing humorous in there. I tugged on it, and it got here out, a plastic trash bag. She had ingested it, and he or she was fortunate sufficient that it went by means of your complete intestinal tract. After I eliminated the bag, she was lastly in a position to lay her eggs.
“We’re shedding, conservatively, tons of of 1000’s of sea turtles as incidental bycatch in fishing nets yearly.”
e360: Turtles typically mistake plastic baggage for jellyfish, which is one in every of their meals. Isn’t that proper?
Figgener: Plastic baggage do look lots like jellyfish. Along with that, the longer plastic floats by means of the ocean, the extra of a biofilm types on its floor, and there’s rising scientific information that it smells like meals to the turtles.
e360: Aren’t fishing nets additionally a menace?
Figgener: Completely, industrial fishing is a significant menace. We’re shedding, conservatively, tons of of 1000’s of sea turtles as incidental bycatch in fishing nets yearly. We even have the issue of so-called ghost nets, nets that had been misplaced or dumped and deserted. As soon as a turtle will get entangled in a ghost internet, they drag this large weight behind them. In some instances, they aren’t in a position to transfer in any respect. It additionally results in many nasty cuts, amputations, and limb loss in sea turtles. Even a single fishing line wrapped round a flipper can lower off blood stream.
e360: Are you able to discuss how air pollution has impacted sea turtle populations.
Figgener: Petroleum will get into the ocean by means of spills and different methods. Fertilizers and pesticides wash into rivers and find yourself within the oceans. In inexperienced turtles there’s a kind of most cancers referred to as fibropapillomatosis, which creates cauliflower-shaped tumors on gentle tissue, just like the eyes and the pores and skin, and is mainly triggered by fertilizer runoff. This runoff additionally creates useless zones within the ocean and poisonous purple tides the place the turtles will feed on the algae blooms and finally die.
An olive ridley sea turtle hatchling heads for the ocean in Lhoknga Seaside, Indonesia.
e360: There are seven main species of sea turtle. All of them are presently endangered or threatened. Why have their numbers been declining so quick? What trigger is most chargeable for this?
Figgener: I get requested this query lots, however I feel it’s deceptive as a result of it provides folks the concept that if they only repair this one difficulty, the issue might be solved. Our world, our oceans are a lot too complicated to say that if we simply cease consuming fish or utilizing plastic straws or what have you ever, sea turtles might be secure.
e360: We’ve been speaking in regards to the issues. However you additionally write about an incredible success story. The Kemp ridley sea turtle was introduced again from the brink of extinction. How did that occur?
Figgener: Numerous issues got here collectively within the favor of the Kemp ridleys. Again within the late 70s and 80s there have been only some hundred nesting females left within the Gulf of Mexico. These turtles typically ended up within the nets of shrimp trawlers. In response, the U.S. mandated a turtle excluding system hooked up to the nets which diminished bycatch by about 90 %.
“Sea turtles have lots going for them. They’re extremely resilient. They’ve been round for hundreds of thousands of years.”
One other factor is there was an enormous exploitation of eggs taking place in Mexico. There have been additionally slaughterhouses for Kemp ridleys and olive ridleys there. These slaughterhouses had been closed, and egg assortment was prohibited by the Mexican authorities.
Some eggs had been transported from Mexico to Texas the place [a nesting colony was re-established at Padre Island National Seashore.] And there was a “head begin program” within the U.S. through which eggs had been incubated in a managed setting after which grown till they had been the dimensions of a plate and not so susceptible to predation as tiny child sea turtles are when they’re born. These turtles had been then launched into the Gulf.
e360: Does the success of those initiatives provide you with hope? Can it’s reproduced elsewhere?
Figgener: Information-driven approaches are undoubtedly the way in which to go. Turtles have lots going for them. They’re extremely resilient. They’ve been round for hundreds of thousands of years. If we all know sufficient in regards to the ecology of the species, the place they feed, the place they mate and so forth, it might occur. We are able to give you profitable methods to avoid wasting them. In order that’s why I’m satisfied that we want good scientific information, along with the need to take efficient measures for his or her safety.
e360: You based the Costa Rican Alliance for Sea Turtle Conservation and Science (COASTS). I do know you’ve been essential of some large conservation teams that come to growing nations nearly with a colonial angle. You make a degree of coaching Costa Ricans to do the science.
Figgener: I’m presently working along with Ariana Oporta. I met her when she was round 14 years outdated. She all the time wished to be a biologist. I don’t assume folks perceive the sort of obstacles folks like her face. The general public faculties in rural Costa Rica usually are not excellent. However she managed to get herself two scholarships to main universities the place she was educated as a marine biologist. Once I got down to discovered COASTS, she was the individual I wished to do it with.
As a German I could be a little sturdy at occasions. Ariana is the face of the group. The locals typically don’t belief the scientists who are available from the skin. Ariana helps to bridge these gaps.
e360: How have attitudes of native folks modified?
Figgener: The youngsters who we did environmental schooling with, who we taught about sea turtles, they’re far more open-minded. There’s a generational change. We all the time have college students from outdoors Costa Rica, and vacationers. I feel that zeal that makes folks journey all that technique to see a nesting sea turtle undoubtedly modifications one thing within the mindset of the individuals who stay right here. It additionally reveals them that you may earn more cash with a stay turtle than by consuming the meat or promoting the eggs.
This article by Richard Schiffman was first revealed by e360.yale.edu on 11 April 2024. Lead Picture: A hawksbill sea turtle within the Maldives. REINHARD DIRSCHERL / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. Richard Schiffman stories on the setting and well being for a wide range of publications that embrace The New York Occasions, Scientific American, The Atlantic, and Yale Surroundings 360. His newest e book is a group of nature-inspired poems entitled What the Mud Doesn’t Know.
What you are able to do
Assist to avoid wasting wildlife by donating as little as $1 – It solely takes a minute.
