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You Can Help Protect Sea Turtles

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You Can Help Protect Sea Turtles U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service How You Can ■ Minimize beachfront lighting during ■ Avoid trampling beach vegetation. Use Help Protect Sea the sea turtle nesting season by boardwalks when available instead of Turtles During turning off, shielding, or redirecting walking over dunes. Natural vegetation Nesting Season lights away from the beach. stabilizes sand and reduces beach erosion. You Can ■ Close blinds and draperies in oceanfront rooms at night to keep ■ When boating, stay alert and avoid sea indoor lighting from reaching the turtles. Propeller and collision impacts Help Protect beach. from boats and ships can result in All six injury and death of sea turtles. Also, sea turtle ■ Remove recreational equipment, such stay in channels and avoid running in Sea Turtles species as lounge chairs, cabanas, umbrellas, seagrass beds to protect this important and boats, from the beach at night. habitat from prop scarring and damage. nesting These items can deter nesting on U.S. attempts and prevent hatchlings from ■ Avoid anchoring boats in seagrass reaching the ocean. beds and coral reefs which serve as beaches important feeding and resting habitats or found ■ Do not to construct beach campfires for sea turtles. during nesting season. Sea turtle Sea turtles are among the in U.S. hatchlings are attracted to the light Protection All six sea turtles nesting on U.S. beaches waters are and may crawl into fires and die. Under the or found in U.S. waters are designated designated Endangered as threatened or endangered under the largest living reptiles. Most ■ Use your natural vision and moonlight Species Act U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). as when walking on the beach at night. Endangered status means a species threatened is considered in danger of extinction species have scales and a bony ■ If you encounter a turtle on the beach throughout all or a significant portion or at night, remain quiet, still and at of its range. Threatened means that a endangered a distance. Flash photography and species is likely to become endangered. human disturbance may prevent her The ESA provides penalties for taking, shell and all species are cold- under from nesting successfully. harassing or harming sea turtles and the U.S. affords some protection for their habitat. blooded, breathe air, and lay Endangered ■ Leave the tracks left by turtles For more information about sea turtles undisturbed. Researchers use the Species Act contact: tracks to identify the species of turtle National Sea Turtle Coordinator (ESA). that nested and to find and mark the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service their eggs on land. Sea turtles nests for protection. If you encounter 7915 Baymeadows Way a sea turtle nest or hatchlings, leave Suite 200 the eggs and baby turtles alone. Jacksonville, FL 32256 are found throughout the world Phone: 904/731 3336 How You Can ■ Properly dispose of your garbage. E-mail: [email protected] Help Protect Sea Turtles may mistake plastic bags, in temperate and tropical Turtles styrofoam, and trash floating in the All Year Long water as food and die when this trash blocks their intestines. waters. Six species of sea turtles ■ Celebrate events without the use of helium balloon releases. Like plastic trash, balloons end up in the ocean, nest on U.S. beaches or are especially when released near the coast. Sea turtles mistakenly eat the balloons and die. Updated July 2009 found in U.S. waters. Loggerhead sea The loggerhead sea turtle is a medium Green sea An adult green turtle can reach more the water. They spend several days turtle to large-sized sea turtle usually turtle than three feet in length and weigh swimming offshore until they reach weighing 175 to 300 pounds 300 to 400 pounds. Though safety within the protective masses of as adults. It is reddish brownish in color, the green floating seaweed in areas where ocean brown to yellow in sea turtle gets its name from currents meet. They eat, sleep and grow color and has a large the greenish color of its there for perhaps up to ten years until head. An adult subdermal fat. Green they reach a certain size or age at which Green loggerhead is two turtles are found along time they return to coastal waters. As and one-half to both the East Coast and adults, female sea turtles return to the three and one-half the West Coast of the same beaches where they hatched to lay feet long. Loggerhead United States with regular their eggs, often navigating across great hatchlings are dull nesting on Florida beaches. expanses of water. brown to rusty brown in color. Leatherback Growing up to eight feet in length Turtles in The number of sea turtles worldwide has Loggerhead Loggerheads are sea turtle and weighing up to 2,000 pounds, the Trouble declined. Human activity is the primary the most common leatherback is the largest living turtle. cause. From the time a sea turtle begins sea turtles in U.S. This turtle is unique in that its shell lacks life as an egg buried in the sand to a waters. Nearly a third of the scales. Instead it is composed of a mosaic grown adult swimming in the ocean, our world’s population nests along of small bones covered by firm, rubbery human activities are impacting sea turtle Atlantic and Gulf Coast beaches. skin with seven longitudinal ridges or survival. Scientists estimate that only keels. Leatherbacks are seen along the one out of 1000 sea turtle hatchlings will Kemp’s The Kemp’s ridley is a small East Coast, and occasionally are make it to adulthood. turtle with adults reaching two Kemp's ridley turtle ridley found stranded on the Gulf to two and one-half feet in length Coast, with regular In many cases, prime sea turtle nesting and weighing 80 to 100 pounds. nesting on Florida sites are also prime real estate. Beaches The Kemp’s ridley has an oval shell beaches. used for nesting are lost to beachfront and is usually an olive-gray color. The Nesting development or are disturbed by beach Kemp’s ridley is the rarest and most and Hatchling Loggerheads maintenance and recreation. Sea turtle endangered of all sea turtles. It occurs Habits are the most reproduction is reduced when adult mainly in coastal areas of the Gulf of common species female sea turtles are unable to nest, Mexico and along the East Coast. of sea turtle nest in poor habitat, or when eggs and to nest in the hatchlings die from human beach activity. Olive ridley The olive ridley is a bit larger than the southeastern Activities in the ocean also threaten sea turtle Kemp’s but is still a small turtle. Adult United States. sea turtles. Sea turtles lose their lives olive ridleys may reach three feet in The peak when they become trapped or tangled length and will weigh 100 to 110 pounds. nesting season in fishing nets, seines and lines. Some The olive ridley is threatened for loggerheads in Leatherback are injured or die when they are hit by except for the Mexican nesting the Southeast is May ships, boats, and jet skis. Plastic bags, population which is endangered. 1 through October 31. styrofoam pieces, balloons, and other Non-nesting individuals are During the nesting season, trash that floats on the ocean are often occasionally found in the waters adult loggerhead females come ashore mistaken for food and eaten by sea along the Pacific coast of the to lay their eggs. Females excavate pits turtles. Ingested trash blocks digestion United States. Nesting using their fore and rear flippers to and can cause death. populations occur in the remove the upper layer of dry sand. Then eastern Pacific near Mexico. they use their rear flippers to dig egg At night, both adult female sea turtles Hawksbill The hawksbill turtle is a small chambers in moist sand. Females lay from and hatchling sea turtles are disturbed to medium-sized turtle. As an adult, 100 to 126 white ping-pong ball-sized eggs by artificial light, including street lights, it may reach up to three feet in length per nest. They cover the eggs with sand, flashlights, flash cameras, and even Hawksbill and weigh 100 to 200 pounds. It gets and return to the water. campfires. Females may not nest and sea turtle hatchlings may become disoriented its name from its distinctive hawk-like Loggerhead sea turtle eggs incubate for beak. Hawksbills have a patterned top heading inland instead of toward the about 60 days. Hatchlings then emerge ocean. shell with overlapping scales. Most U.S. from the nests and scurry toward sightings are around Florida and Texas. .
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