Community Messages & Key Facts


Sea Turtles:

• Sea Turtles (Chelonioidea) are reptiles found in all the world's oceans except the Arctic Ocean.
• Sea Turtles play key roles in the two ecosystems that are critical to them as well as to humans - 1) the oceans and 2) beaches/dumes
• They can live up to 189 years
• If sea turtles were to become extinct, the negative impact on beaches and the oceans would potentially be significant
• Some species travel between oceans like the Loggerhead and Leatherback turtles.
  
• There are 7 types of sea turtles: 1) KEMP'S RIDLEY, 2) FLATBACK, 3) GREEN, 4) OLIVE RIDLEY, 5) LOGGERHEAD, 6) HAWKSBILL AND 7) LEATHERBACK.
  
• All but the Leatherback are in the family of Chelonioidea;
  
• Leatherbacks belongs to the family of Dermochelyidae and is only member
• They are highly sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field and use it to navigate
• Papua New Guinea is the last remaining nesting site for the endangered Pacific Leatherback Turtles.
• Scientists predict that Pacific Leatherbacks Turtles could be extinct in 20 years time, at the current harvest rate (by-catch)
• Based on community testimony we know that the population has decreased since the 1990s
• Tri-national MOU was signed between PNG, Solomon Islands and Indonesia in August 2006 to protect Leatherback Turtles
• Leatherback turles travel at the distance of 12,774 miles 20,558 km across the Pacific the longest recorded migration of any sea vertebrates
• Less than 5,000 nesting leatherbacks exist in the Pacific Ocean today and that is a 95 percent drop from 1980
• They are the deepest diving sea turtles on earth
• They weigh more than 92 bags of 10kg rice or 916 kilograms
• They can reach the size of a cab or 270 cm (2.7 meters)
• Leatherback turtles have been in existence for more than 100 million years
• Marine Debris is affecting reproduction and nesting behaviors (plastic waste is lethal to leatherbacks, plastic bags)
  
• US dumping debris in our ocean is effecting our resources
• Sea-bed mining and dumping of terrestrial slurry is potentially harmful to the habitat and migratory routes (plumes of mining may harm everything in the ocean and humans)
• Another threat is poaching
• Unintentional capture and drowning by commercial fishing boats (especially shrimp trawlers)
• Commercial developments
• Climate change potential for raising sea-levels which are eroding the nesting sites and diverting the turtles from traditional sites and moving them to other sites
• Fisheries/overfishing using longline and gillnets
• Pollution

Created by Wenceslaus Magun of P.O. Box 1312, Port Moresby NCD, PNG. PH: +675 719 59665 or + 675 323 2632
Email: magun.wences@gmail.com /Website: www.seaturtles.org