Sea Turtles

25 km of nesting beaches protected The Costa Rican non-profit Programa Restauración de Tortugas Marinas PRETOMA recently launched a new sea turtle conservation and investigation network to protect more than…

July 13, 2006 – San Jose, Costa Rica
The Constitutional Branch of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica has accepted for study a case which calls for the nullification of a planned tuna farm at the mouth of the Golfo Dulce.

The case was filed by the Town Council of Punta Banco, the coastal community which sits in front of where the proposed installation site, and PRETOMA, and is backed by 15 organizations from the communities around Dulce Gulf.

New York, NY – June 16, 2006 – The Sea Turtle Restoration Project presented a plan of action yesterday to the United Nations regarding the protection and restoration of the leatherback sea turtle against longline fishing. Over 1,000 scientists from nearly 100 countries and over 280 NGOs joined in a call for a moratorium on high seas industrial longline fishing to prevent that extinction.

The greatest number of endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles nesting on one day in Texas was recorded Wednesday, April 26. Dr. Donna Shaver, Chief of the Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Division of the National Park Service at the Padre Island National Seashore announced Wednesday evening that the first 10 Kemp’s ridley nests located on the Texas coast during 2006 had been found. Nine were located at Padre Island National Seashore and one on Matagorda Island. Turtles were present at six of the sites. One of the nesters at the National Seashore was a 1987 year class head-start that has nested there before. The others were all wild turtles that had not been documented before. Two nests at the National Seashore were only 50 yards apart.

“Visitors to north Texas coastal beaches should

The world’s top sea turtle experts are calling on both the United States and Mexico to provide more protection for the Kemp’s ridley sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. A resolution passed in Crete earlier this month at the 26th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation recommends that all relevant governmental agencies work to create a migration and nesting season no commercial fishing zone (marine reserve) in the state waters adjoining North and South Padre Islands, Texas, and a year round no-commercial fishing zone from the Mexican border south to Tampico, creating an international protected Kemp’s Ridley Swimway from Corpus Christi, Texas, south to Tampico, Mexico.

In an unprecedented but legally mandated action, the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council requested the Secretary of Commerce to shut down the swordfish fishery before it exceeds its allowable “take”…

On March 9th, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council will take its final vote to allow drift gillnets, also known as “curtains of death,” and longlines back into vast protected areas…

US and Pacific Island’s Plan is Sabotaged by Japan Pohnpei, Micronesia – This week Japan undermined the new Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s initiative to protect endangered sea turtles….

Environmentalist and Other Groups Propose Alternative Measures to Prevent the Extinction of the Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtle On Monday, the new Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, meeting in Pohnpei,…