Don’t Miss Our First Members-Only Live Webinar!

We’re thrilled to announce Education Sparks Change: Plastic Free July & Beyond — Turtle Island Restoration Network’s very first exclusive live webinar just for our incredible members! Mark your calendars for Wednesday, July 30th at 5pm PST and get ready to dive in with our passionate Gulf of Mexico and Oceans team.

This special event is your chance to discover local solutions to plastic pollution, hear inspiring success stories from the frontlines of ocean conservation, and learn simple, effective actions you can take to help build a plastic-free future long after July ends. It’s also the perfect time to bring all your sustainability questions — our team loves connecting directly with members like you and sharing the latest updates on our work to protect our oceans and marine wildlife.

Come curious, leave inspired, and feel even more empowered to make waves for a healthier blue planet. We can’t wait to sea you there!

Become a TIRN member today to access exclusive content, like this live webinar, here.

Already a TIRN member? Access your membership portal to sign up for the webinar here.

Photo by Kaylam-Pratt on a TIRN Cocos Island Expedition trip.

For Immediate Release, July 23, 2025

Contact: Todd Steiner, Founder & Special Projects, TSteiner@seaturtles.org   

This Shark Week, Turtle Island Restoration Network Calls for Action to Protect the Ocean’s True Stars: As Shark Populations Plummet Worldwide, Advocates Urge Costa Rica to Protect Critical Migration Corridor

UNITED STATES – As millions of viewers celebrate the awe and mystery of sharks during Discovery Channel’s iconic summer series, Shark Week, Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) — a leading ocean and watershed conservation nonprofit — is calling on the global citizens and policymakers alike to take meaningful action to protect these magnificent predators before it’s too late.

Every year, more than 100 million sharks are killed in commercial fisheries*, driving many endangered species — like scalloped hammerhead sharks, whale sharks, silky sharks, and tiger sharks — toward extinction. Yet these same species keep entire marine ecosystems healthy by maintaining the balance of ocean food webs.

“The public’s understanding of the ecologically important role sharks play in maintaining healthy oceans has grown tremendously in recent years, but this has not yet translated to a decrease in fishing mortality. While shark finning is down, shark meat consumption is up according to a recent study*. This Shark Week, we urge everyone who loves these animals on screen to take real-world action to protect them in the wild.” said Todd Steiner, ecologist and founder of the international environmental organization, Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Many shark species are highly migratory and travel outside the territorial waters of any single nation. One of the most urgent opportunities for action to protect sharks is the completion of the Cocos–Galápagos Swimway, a proposed marine protected migration corridor linking Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands with Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park. This 396-mile underwater “blue highway” is a lifeline for countless charismatic marine species, including hammerheads, whale sharks, tiger sharks and silky sharks that travel between these UNESCO World Heritage sites.

While Ecuador has protected its portion of the Swimway with a no-take marine reserve, Costa Rica has yet to secure its share, leaving migrating sharks vulnerable to industrial fishing and illegal poaching as they travel the open ocean.

“The science is clear: protecting small islands alone isn’t enough for highly migratory species… If we want to keep seeing hammerheads and whales sharks on our screens, and in our oceans, we need bold action now to protect their entire migratory routes,” Steiner concluded.

Turtle Island Restoration Network has championed this ‘swimway’ approach for decades. Early campaigns in the Gulf of Mexico helped safeguard migration routes for the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, aiding the species’ recovery. Now, the same proven strategy can protect some of the ocean’s most perfectly evolved predators… the real stars of Shark Week.

How Anyone Can Help Conservation This Shark Week:

• Individuals use their voices here
• Scientists sign on in support here
• Organizations join the coalition here

For more information on the Cocos-Galapagos Swimway campaign and to take action with us, visit www.seaturtles.org/the-cocos-galapagos-swimway. Access media for a Cocos-Galapagos press story here.

*Worm et al., Global shark fishing mortality still rising despite widespread regulatory change. Science 383, 225–230 (2024) 12 January 2024.  

Turtle Island Restoration Network is a global ocean conservation nonprofit with offices in California and Texas, whose mission is to inspire and mobilize people around the world to protect marine biodiversity, the oceans and watersheds that sustain all life on Earth.

“Photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard/Clean Gulf Associates via AP, a Clean Gulf Associates 95-foot response vessel skims crude oil approximately 4 miles southeast off South Pass Louisiana in 2023.”

Off the coasts of our country — in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific — thousands of rusting oil wells and decaying platforms sit like time bombs beneath the waves. Many of these sites have been abandoned for decades, left to leak oil, methane, heavy metals and other toxic chemicals into the waters that loggerhead sea turtles, whales and countless other marine creatures call home.

Last month, Turtle Island Restoration Network joined a coalition of environmental organizations to demand that the federal government do what should be obvious: stop giving new offshore drilling rights to oil companies that refuse to clean up their mess.

The basic principle is simple — if you make a mess, you clean it up. If you don’t, you lose the privilege to keep making the mess in the first place. Right now, more than 2,700 wells and 500 platforms in the Gulf are overdue for decommissioning. In the Pacific, around 100 unused wells still need permanent plugging. Every day that this rusting infrastructure remains in our waters, it threatens ocean ecosystems, coastal communities and the climate.

When fossil fuel companies abandon these sites, they pass the cost — and the risk — onto all of us. Taxpayers end up footing the bill for cleanup, local communities lose income from polluted fisheries and beaches, and wildlife pay the ultimate price in lost habitat, chronic contamination and deadly oil blowouts. Just this April, an 82-year-old unplugged well in Louisiana’s marshes spilled over 170,000 gallons of oil into waters where sea turtles forage and nest.

The oil and gas industry wants us to believe it’s acceptable to turn our ocean into a scrapyard. Some companies even argue that abandoned rigs make good reefs — a dangerous distraction that ignores how these structures can spread invasive species and leach toxins into the water column.

Our ocean is not a landfill. It is a living, breathing blue heart that sustains our climate, our communities and irreplaceable wildlife. When companies profit from drilling, they must also take responsibility for restoring what they’ve disturbed. Decommissioning these old wells and platforms isn’t just about removing hazards — it’s about creating good-paying, local jobs that restore our coasts, protect marine life and build a healthier future for generations to come.

At Turtle Island Restoration Network, we will continue to fight alongside our partners to ensure that the federal government holds oil and gas companies accountable. We will keep advocating for stronger enforcement of existing laws so that the fossil fuel industry can’t keep playing “hot potato” with aging, dangerous wells.

It’s time to stop giving new drilling permits to companies that treat our ocean like a dumping ground. It’s time to protect our waters, our wildlife and our coastal communities — and build an energy future that puts people and the planet before profit.

Read the full article on Courthouse News here.

Thank You to the Houston Chronicle and Journalist Heide Brandes for Spotlighting Our Urgent TIDE Campaign!

We are deeply grateful to the Houston Chronicle for highlighting the urgent need for our TIDE Campaign and the work Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) is doing to protect the Gulf of Mexico.

As shared in their recent article, plastic pollution – particularly the spread of tiny plastic pellets called nurdles – poses a growing threat to Galveston’s beaches, wildlife and community health. Every day, our team witnesses this crisis firsthand, collecting hundreds of nurdles during beach surveys and documenting the harmful impact of plastic waste across the Gulf.

The Chronicle’s coverage comes at a critical time as we work to raise $1 million to build a new Conservation and Education Center right here in Galveston. Through this campaign, and with the public’s support of $150,000, we will create a permanent, welcoming space to educate, inspire and activate local communities, schools, families and visitors. Our new center will serve as a hub for citizen science programs like nurdle patrols, sea turtle monitoring, beach cleanups, and climate resilience education – empowering the next generation of ocean advocates.

TIRN has been part of the Galveston community for nearly 20 years. With climate change, habitat loss and pollution increasingly threatening the Gulf, establishing a permanent home for our work is more important than ever.

“‘Together, we can inspire the next generation of ocean advocates and ensure a sustainable future for marine life,’ said Todd Steiner, TIRN’s founder, about the center’s importance for inspiring future generations… [As Joanie Steinhaus, TIRN’s Ocean Program Director] continues her work on Galveston’s beaches, she remains hopeful that the new center will amplify TIRN’s impact in the Gulf region and beyond. Each tiny nurdle she collects represents both the enormous challenge of plastic pollution and the power of dedicated conservation efforts to make a difference. ‘We try not to be doom and gloom,’ she said. ‘We try to say: this is what you can do. This is what you personally can do.'”

The Houston Chronicle’s thoughtful reporting helps shine a light on these urgent issues and the solutions within reach. We hope their readers and our community will be inspired to join us in making a lasting impact for the Gulf, our beaches, and our wildlife.

Learn more about the TIDE Campaign and how you can help at www.seaturtles.org/TIDE. Together, we can TIRN the TIDE for the Gulf and Galveston’s future.

Header photo description: “An effort is underway to establish an environmental education center in Galveston, Texas. The group behind the proposed center hopes to teach visitors about the impact that trash and waste have on the Gulf Coast ecosystem.” Photo credit: Thomas Lammeyer/Getty Images

Photo of Galveston Education & Conservation Center inside lab by Lynette T. McLamb.

Project 2025 Would Be a Disaster for Our National Marine Sanctuaries & Ocean Ecosystems

By Todd Steiner

According to a new article, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-be-a-disaster-for-national-marine-sanctuaries/, the extreme conservative blueprint from the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 would put oceans in peril by weakening protections and prioritizing industry desires over conservation.

New analysis from the Center for American Progress reports if Project 2025 were implemented, it would expose 1,370,350 square miles of ocean and freshwater habitat to new threats, including our National Marine Sanctuaries.

There are currently 16 National Marine Sanctuaries, stretching from the Florida Keys to Hawaii, which protect 600,000 square miles of habitat, and several new Sanctuaries are under consideration. All National Marine Sanctuaries ban all extraction of minerals and fossil fuels within their boundaries.

Project 2025 would threaten new and proposed sanctuaries by:

• Opening opportunities for mineral extraction in existing sanctuaries;
• Pausing creation of any new national marine sanctuaries; and
• Radically restructuring the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency that manages the National Marine Sanctuary program.

Project 2025 prioritizes extractive industry and giveaways, especially to the fossil fuel industry. A list of additional threats posed by Project 2025 to current US policies that protect environmental and human health can be found here:

https://www.americanprogress.org/?s=project+2025

For Immediate Release: December 28, 2023

Fishery’s Expansion Threatens Endangered Leatherback Habitat Off California 

SAN FRANCISCO— The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network sued the National Marine Fisheries Service today for failing to protect Pacific leatherback sea turtles and their critical habitat from sablefish pot gear that can entangle and drown the endangered animals. 

The West Coast pot fishery for the bottom-dwelling sablefish — also known as butterfish or black cod — is now allowed to fish in conservation areas off Oregon and California that have been closed since the early 2000s. Almost 2,000 square miles of the newly opened areas are in leatherback sea turtle critical habitat, including crucial feeding areas off California’s central coast in the Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones and Monterey Bay national marine sanctuaries.  

“It’s horrific that hungry leatherback sea turtles have to navigate a vast maze of fishing pot strings after migrating thousands of miles to California,” said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These areas have already been designated critical habitat for the sea turtles, and they shouldn’t be a death trap. The federal government was irresponsible in rubber-stamping the reopening of these areas to dangerous sablefish pots. Leatherbacks are on the verge of extinction, and we can’t let them be killed by commercial fishing gear.” 

Today’s lawsuit asserts that the reopening is likely to increase endangered leatherback sea turtle deaths and harm their principal feeding habitat in central California. West Coast entanglements in pot fishing gear are a continuing threat to endangered leatherbacks. These massive sea turtles migrate from Indonesia and then along the West Coast to feed on jellyfish and other gelatinous prey. 

The sablefish fishery uses 2-mile-long strings of 30 to 50 pots each, the ends of which connect to vertical lines ending at a surface buoy. According to a 2012 Fisheries Service analysis, the sablefish pot fishery is expected to kill or injure about 1.9 leatherback sea turtles every five years. Between 2015 and 2019, before this reopening, around that many leatherback sea turtle entanglements were traced to West Coast fishing.  

“Leatherbacks are drowning horrible deaths or being seriously injured when they get entangled in pot traps and this must stop immediately,” said Todd Steiner, ecologist and founder of Turtle Island Restoration Network. “With only a couple of thousand adult leatherbacks left in the Pacific, every single leatherback is critical to the survival of the species. Their fate is in our hands, and time is running out.” 

The lawsuit also argues the Service failed to reanalyze the sablefish fishery’s impact when it reopened conservation areas in the leatherback’s principal feeding waters. Recent science highlights the leatherback’s continuing decline, and this action’s reopening of fishing in the leatherback’s designated critical habitat triggered additional legally required scrutiny of the action.

To make fishing safer, the Center has proposed that the Service require all fisheries that use pot gear to convert to new ropeless or “pop-up” gear within the next five years. The Center’s petition requests that the agency prioritize the transition in national marine sanctuaries, which would benefit the leatherback sea turtles feeding in central California.   

Most trap and pot fisheries use static vertical lines that can wrap around sea turtles’ necks or front flippers, anchoring them to the seafloor and drowning them. Pop-up traps use lift bags or buoys on coiled ropes triggered by remote or time-release sensors to float the traps to the surface, eliminating static entangling lines.

The Dungeness crab and other crab pot fisheries are also threats to leatherback sea turtles. A leatherback was entangled and killed in November 2023 and entanglements were also documented in 2015 and 2016 — all traced to Dungeness gear. Another dead leatherback was found entangled in rock crab pot gear in 2018.  

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

ABOUT TURTLE ISLAND RESTORATION NETWORK (TIRN)

Turtle Island Restoration Network is a global nonprofit whose mission is to inspire and mobilize people around the world to protect marine biodiversity and the oceans that sustain all life on Earth.

Figure 1. Leatherback sea turtle critical habitat in California consists of Area 1 in orange, the principal feeding area, and Area 7 in yellow, the secondary feeding area. The cross-hatch indicates conservation areas Fisheries Service recently reopened to sablefish pot fishing. Map by K. Clauser/Center for Biological Diversity. K. Clauser/Center for Biological Diversity

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When returning adult coho salmon started dying before spawning in the Seattle area, scientists went into action.  Polluted road run-off was the suspected culprit, but discovering what of the thousands of chemicals was the primary cause took years of research.  We now know it is from tire particles- specifically, a chemical referred to as 6PPD-quinone, added to tires to slow degradation.

SPAWN has tested San Geronimo Creek for presence of the chemical and has found trace amounts, but so far we have not seen the die-offs being seen in more urban settings.  We are also looking at ways to catch road-runoff and biofilter the water before it reaches the salmon-bearing creeks, see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00203 .

California is taking action to eliminate 6PPD-quinone sold in California and other States are too.  To read more about the actions of California, visit https://dtsc.ca.gov/scp/motor_vehicle_tires_containing_6ppd/

]]> 36638 https://seaturtles.org/celebrating-summer-with-spawn-volunteers/ Mon, 11 Sep 2023 20:21:15 +0000 https://seaturtles.org/?p=36367 By Audrey Fusco We celebrated summer by extending the hours of our nursery volunteer events to 10am – 4pm during the months of June, July, and August 2023. The longer...]]>

By Audrey Fusco

We celebrated summer by extending the hours of our nursery volunteer events to 10am – 4pm during the months of June, July, and August 2023. The longer summer volunteer events gave staff, interns, and volunteers more opportunities to connect with the land and with the cycle of the seasons. During spring and summer months the volunteers primarily work with potting up seedlings in the nursery, caring for nursery plants, washing pots, collecting seeds from the Lagunitas Creek watershed, and weeding invasive plants from the floodplain restoration sites.

Volunteer Karen Dabrusin Weeds Invasive Plants at the Tocaloma Site

In June, July, and August, SPAWN Nursery extended Friday nursery volunteer hours and offered lunch to the volunteer group. Volunteers enjoyed morning bird walks led by nursery volunteers Dean and Nancy Hanson during the months of February through June. Friday afternoon seed hikes were held in August and September.

Seed Collection at Samuel P. Taylor State Park with Interns and Volunteers

SPAWN held several birthday parties for staff members and long-time volunteers over the summer. We also held a mid-summer celebration for nursery volunteers on July 21st.

Volunteer Day at the Nursery and Birthday Celebration of Eve, Summer Habitat Restoration Intern

During Friday volunteer lunch gatherings the group held lively conversations about the Lagunitas Creek watershed and celebrated special events. We especially enjoyed having a new lunch table at the nursery which was made from reclaimed wood and donated by Julian Eusebio Anaya of Katarina Total Yardscape in July 2023.

Lunchtime at Newly Donated Table

Much work was accomplished with removing invasive plants from our Roy’s Riffles restoration project site. We want to thank Habitat Restoration Interns Nyna Hong, Robert Bostonia, and Cameron Noren, and also the Broom Service group of the San Geronimo Valley for their contribution to removing hemlock, thistles, French broom, and other invasive species from the Roy’s Riffles site over the summer. We hold two habitat restoration volunteer events each month on Saturdays from 10am – 2pm. Summer habitat restoration events focus on managing invasive species. During the winter the habitat restoration events focus on planting native plants at our floodplain restoration sites.

Volunteer Day at Roy’s Riffles

We rely on our volunteers to help with caring for the native plants at SPAWN Nursery and to help with maintaining our floodplain restoration sites. The volunteer community provides the foundation of support in our efforts to enhance native habitat for wildlife in the Lagunitas Creek watershed. Please view the volunteer calendar to learn about upcoming volunteer events with SPAWN: http://seaturtles.org/events. Write to Audrey, audrey@tirn.net to learn about volunteer events at the nursery or to Ayano, ahayes@tirn.net to learn more about habitat restoration volunteer events.

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