Extinction, Survival or Recovery: The Sea Turtle As Harbinger of the State of Humanity - a live radio conversation with Todd Steiner, Director and Founder of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, and Andrea Treece, Senior Attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity's Oceans Program; hosted by David Occhiuto.

Our oceans are home to seven species of sea turtles. These wide-ranging and mysterious creatures are present throughout the world's tropical and temperate waters. Six of the seven turtle species are listed as threatened or endangered under the U. S. Endangered Species Act. The systematic pillaging of our fragile ocean ecosystem by high seas industrial longlining continues to inflict the most devastating impacts on sea turtles and other marine life. What are the real impediments to marine protection and restoration? How can progressive social and political forces work to ensure ocean eco-system restoration and real, enduring protections?
seaturtles.org
www.biologicaldiversity.org


For info on January 13th/nationwide action to show President Obama unwavering support for sea turtles, salmon, and healthy oceans: seaturtles.org/article.php?id=1509

Protect Pacific Sea Turtles - DENOUNCE THE U.S. DECISION TO INCREASE SEA TURTLE DEATHS IN HAWAII SWORDFISH FISHERY:
salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1723/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1890

Public comments needed on proposed rule to protect 70,000 Square Miles of habitat for Endangered Leatherback Sea Turtles:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2010/leatherback-habitat-01-05-2010.html
http://seaturtles.org/article.php?id=1505

Suit Filed to Stop Hawaii Longline Fishery From Tripling Sea Turtle Kill
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/loggerhead-sea-turtle-12-16-2009.html

Turtle Island Sues U. S. Fishery Managers to Reverse Hundreds of Loggerhead Deaths in Florida Fishery:
http://seaturtles.org/article.php?id=1497

Background information:

The leatherback sea turtle has become a harbinger for the overall health of the oceans and the survival of human society. Having survived dinosaurs and countless other species over the past 100 million years, the Pacific leatherback’s nesting population has declined by 95 percent since 1980, primarily as a result of industrial longline "fishing" (which occurs close to the surface where turtles spend most of their time), pollution, poaching of eggs, and the destruction of habitat by unchecked development. As a result, the near extinction of the Pacific leatherback can be seen as an exemplary case study of the drastic threats to our ocean environment, marine species and our own future.

Many of the island nations of the Western and Central Pacific have developed unique cultures interwoven with the ocean, fish and other living creatures that are crucial to their self-awareness of their place in the world, their origins, spirituality and unique socio-economic subsistence-based ways of life. The rapid depletion of not only large predatory fish but also associated species, such as sea turtles and cetaceans by industrial longlining threaten the very existence of their ways of life. Writer Osha Gray Davidson relates that a number of island cultures trace their origins to the sea turtle. Hawai’ian spiritual teachers relate the creation myth of the sea turtle as “the benevolent character who inhabits the spiritual world and the physical world at the same time. It is the link between the two. Turtle is the foundation.” These legends are not merely myths. Rather, they define cultural rules that have allowed these island societies to live in harmony with the ocean and its living beings.

The Pacific Ocean has become a silent minefield of millions of hooks threaded along nearly invisible monofilament lines stretching far into the horizon. Each day, about 12,000 victims, including whales, dolphins, seabirds, billfish, sea turtles and sharks, are pointlessly injured and killed by these ocean mines. Longline fishing vessels cruise the surface for 25 to 100 kilometers spooling mainlines, floats, branchlines and hooks into the water. Between 500 and 3,000 baited hooks hang from the mainlines. Radio transmitters, light sticks, ribbons and other implements also may be added. All of this gear drifts overnight or all day in the ocean and is then hauled in along with everything that has been hooked or entangled on the lines. Although longlines are used to target a number of different fish species, they are most lucratively used to catch tuna, swordfish and shark. Because longlining has a low degree of selectivity, a significant and growing part of the catch of a targeted longline fishery is “bycatch” that is either thrown back, finned, or commercialized which puts additional pressures on already depleted fisheries.

Sea turtles are one of the non-target species most vulnerable to longlines. Some sea turtle species such as loggerheads, olive ridleys and greens swallow the longline bait and swallow the hook, or are caught in the mouth. Hooked or entangled, often held underwater by longline gear - unable to reach the surface to breathe - they drown. Those that are hauled up before drowning, if they are not killed or kept for meat, may be released with serious trauma and injuries making them vulnerable to being caught again later or dying from their wounds. The use of longlines in the US remained insignificant until a combination of factors — new permitting for swordfishing, technological advances in engine power and refrigeration, expansion of subsidies, credit and financing, and a ban on high seas driftnets longer than 2.5 kilometers — led many industrial vessels to switch over to longlining...

(excerpts from: 'Striplining the Pacific: The Case for a United Nations Moratorium on High Seas Industrial Longline Fishing' published in 2005 by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project ). To download STRP's report 'Striplining the Pacific':
http://www.seaturtles.org/article.php?id=769

O. G. Davidson, 'Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean'. One of the people the author meets asked him to "Remind them: we are all creatures of the sea", and that's what this book does.
www.oshadavidson.com