As per a research report conducted by Duke University Project GloBAL and Conservation International, the accidental deaths of sea turtle in fishing gear in US coastal waters has declined by 90 percent since 1990. This dramatic drop was a result of measures that have been put into place over the last 20 years to reduce bycatch in many fisheries, as well as to overall declines in U.S. fishing activity.
According to the study about 4,600 sea turtles die each year in US coastal waters. Before measures to reduce bycatch were put in place, total sea turtle takes surpassed 300,000 annually. Of these, 70,000 turtles were killed accidentally. The study used data collected from 1990 to 2007 by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to determine bycatch rates across more than 20 fisheries operating in Atlantic waters from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, and in the Pacific Ocean, along the West coast and around Hawaii.
Scientists said that during the study period shrimp trawls in the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern U.S. accounted for up to 98 percent of all by-catch takes and deaths. All six marine turtle species that occur in U.S. waters are categorized as threatened or endangered on the U.S. Endangered Species List. They are loggerheads, leatherbacks, hawksbills, olive ridleys, Kemp’s ridleys and green sea turtles.
Elena Finkbeiner, a PhD student at Duke and lead author of the paper, said that the reduction of bycatch and mortality shows important progress by NMFS, which serves as a model for reducing sea turtle bycatch in other parts of the world. She said that the research shows there are effective ways available for policymakers and fishing industries to reduce sea turtle bycatch, as long as they are implemented properly and consistently.
She also told that the study provides a baseline to examine what is working and what can be improved in preventing sea turtle bycatch. This will increase observer coverage and bycatch reporting.
