PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND WESTERN PACIFIC SEA TURTLE Cooperative Research & Management Workshop VOLUME II North Pacific Loggerhead Sea Turtles Coordinated & Edited by Irene Kinan Sponsored by the 1164 Bishop Street, Suite 1400 Honolulu, Hawaii, 96813, USA www.wpcouncil.org/Protected To provide a forum to gather and exchange information, promote collaboration, and maintain momentum for research, conservation and management of Pacific sea turtle populations. Document Citation Kinan, I. (editor). 2006. Proceedings of the Second Western Pacific Sea Turtle Cooperative Research and Management Workshop. Volume II: North Pacific Loggerhead Sea Turtles. March 2-3, 2005, Honolulu, HI. Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council: Honolulu, HI, USA. Editors’ note The papers presented at the workshop and contained in these proceedings have been edited and formatted for consistency, with only minor changes to language, syntax, and punctuation. The authors’ bibliographic, abbreviation and writing styles, however, have generally been retained. Several presenters did not submit a written paper, or submitted only an abstract to the meeting. In these instances, a summary was produced from transcripts of their presentations. The opinions of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. A report of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council printed pursuant to National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration Award No. NA05NMF441092 3 Table of Contents 5 PREFACE 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 INDO-PACIFIC MARINE TURTLES 8 WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS 9 WORKSHOP SUMMARY: A Collaboration of Partnerships Around the Pacific 11 INTRODUCTION: Research Story of the North Pacific Loggerhead Sea Turtle Irene Kinan and Dr. Wallace J. Nichols 13 Nesting Beach Management of Eggs and Pre-emergent Hatchlings of North Pacific Loggerhead Sea Turtles in Japan Dr. Yoshimasa Matsuzawa 23 The Sea Turtle Situation of Yakushima Island Kazuyoshi Ohmuta 27 The Current Status of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle Rookeries in Miyazaki, Japan Hiroshi Takeshita 31 Pelagic Research of Pacific Loggerhead Sea Turtles in Partnership with Japan and Taiwan George Balazs 35 The Kuroshio Extension Current Bifurcation Region: A Pelagic Hotspot for Juvenile Loggerhead Sea Turtles Dr. Jeffrey Polovina 39 Sea Turtle Fishery Bycatch Reduction: An Update on Sensory Experiments and Field Trials Dr. Yonat Swimmer Proceedings of the Second Western Pacific Sea Turtle Cooperative Research & Management Workshop 4 Table of Contents (continued) 43 Loggerhead Turtle Bycatch in Peru Jeffrey Mangel 45 The Conservation Mosaic: Networks, Knowledge and Communication for Loggerhead Turtle Conservation at Baja California Foraging Grounds Dr. Wallace J. Nichols 49 An Integrated Approach to Reducing Mortality of North Pacific Loggerhead Turtles in Baja California SUR, Mexico Hoyt Peckham 59 Reducing the Bycatch of Loggerhead Turtle (Caretta caretta) in Baja California SUR: Experimental Modification of Gillnets for Fishing Halibut David Maldonado 69 Environmental Education on Pacific Loggerhead Turtles for School Children in Mexico and Japan Kojiro Mizuno 71 Health Issues of Sea Turtles: A Conservation Medicine Approach Dr. Alonso Aguirre 77 New Caledonian Loggerhead Turtle Population Assessment: 2005 Pilot Study Dr. Colin J. Limpus 93 APPENDIX 1: North Pacific Loggerhead Turtle – Threat Mix 95 APPENDIX 2: Workshop Participants Contact Information 5 Preface This volume of papers is a record community-based Non-governmental of the Second Western Pacific Organizations (NGOs) have helped Sea Turtle Cooperative Research foster essential research and and Management Workshop that conservation throughout the Pacific convened in Honolulu, Hawaii region. To date, the WPRFMC’s sponsored by the Western Pacific management program consists of Regional Fishery Management a suite of measures that include Council (WPRFMC). The focus of sea turtle conservation projects at these proceedings is on north Pacific nesting beaches and coastal foraging loggerhead sea turtles. habitats, and actions that promote environmentally responsible longline Sea turtles migrate vast distances fisheries. across ocean basins, living complex life histories within pelagic, coastal To maintain momentum for and beach habitats of numerous continued research, conservation and Pacific nations. Consequently a management, the WPRFMC convened collaborative approach among a series of workshops that together nations, in a manner that considers comprise the Second Western Pacific their entire life history, is essential Sea Turtle Cooperative Research & for effective conservation and Management Workshop. The focus of management. Recognizing that sea these workshops were on west Pacific turtle recovery must focus on more leatherback and southwest Pacific than just fishery mitigation, the hawksbill sea turtles (May 17-21, 2004: WPRFMC, the federal authority for Volume 1; Kinan, 2005), and north fisheries in the U.S. waters of the Pacific loggerhead sea turtles Pacific Islands region, has expanded (March 2-3, 2005: Volume 2). its focus of international fishery management to include sea turtle The 13 papers presented at this conservation. workshop comprise current and comprehensive information from key In 2002, the WPRFMC convened players involved in Pacific loggerhead the first Western Pacific Sea sea turtle research and conservation. Turtle Cooperative Research and The workshop concluded by the Management Workshop to exchange development of a threat matrix scientific information, gather an for the north Pacific loggerhead update on the status of population stock. Overall, new and encouraging trends, and help build consensus information was offered as well as for a regional approach towards evidence that population level impacts research and conservation (Kinan, persist. This meeting reinforced that 2002). Through this dialogue, the effective sea turtle conservation must WPRFMC focused on the most be wide ranging and international in efficient use of its resources to aid scope, and that multi-cultural projects in the recovery of depleted Pacific involving scientists, conservationists, sea turtle populations. Since 2003, fishermen and communities are the WPRFMC, in collaboration necessary to establish effective with NOAA Fisheries and numerous long-term management solutions. 6 Acknowledgments The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) would like to thank the workshop participants for their presentations and papers prepared for the meeting. Without the dedication and enthusiasm of our participants, this meeting would not have been possible. The WPRFMC expresses its sincerest gratitude to its Turtle Advisory Committee: Mr. George Balazs, Dr. Jeff Polovina, Dr. Peter Dutton, Dr. Colin Limpus, Dr. Milani Chaloupka, Dr. Nick Pilcher, Dr. Naoki Kamezaki, and Ms. Laura Sarti for their time, energy, ideas and insights, and whose expertise and leadership we could not do without. We thank NOAA Fisheries for involvement and support of this workshop, of the WPRFMC’s turtle program, and for sharing in the vision of cooperative research and integrated sea turtle management. 7 Indo-Pacific Marine Turtles Although revered in culture and customs around the globe, sea turtles have also been exploited for their meat, eggs, shell, leather, and oil for centuries. The negative effects of this unregulated adult and egg harvest, along with impacts from habitat degradation, coastal construction, commercial trade and mortalities through accidental capture in coastal and pelagic fisheries have accelerated the decline of sea turtle populations in the Pacific. Today, all sea turtle populations are listed as either threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act1. Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) Olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) Flatback (Natator depressus) Green (Chelonia mydas) Marine turtles of the Indo-Pacific. Not pictured is the subpopulation of the eastern Pacific “black” sea turtle, Chelonia agassizii (PHOTO SOURCE: DR. COLIN LIMPUS) 1 Green (Chelonia mydas), and olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles are listed as threatened, except for breeding colony populations of green turtles in Florida and on the Pacific coast of Mexico and breeding colony populations of olive ridleys on the Pacific coast of Mexico which are listed as endangered. 8 Workshop Participants GROUP PHOTO: From left to right, top to bottom: Mr. Jeff Mangel, Dr. Yoshimasa Matsuzawa, Mr. David Maldonado, Ms. Anne Trevor, Ms. Tina Fahy, Ms. Kitty Simonds, Dr. Alonso Aguirre, Dr. Amanda Southwood, Mr. Mizuno Kojiro, Ms. Erika Mori, Mr. George “Keoki” Balazs, Ms. Therese Conant, Dr. Jeffrey Polovina, Ms. Brande Gerkee, Dr. Peter Dutton, Dr. Nicolas Pilcher, Mr. Hoyt Peckman, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, Dr. Colin Limpus, Dr. Kazuyoshi Ohmuta, Dr. Hiroshi Takeshita, Ms. Cheryl Ryder, Dr. Melissa Snover, Dr. Naoki Kamezaki, Dr. Yonat Swimmer, Ms. Irene Kinan. Not pictured: Dr. Milani Chaloupka. 9 Workshop Summary: Irene Kinan WPRFMC A Collaboration of Partnerships Turtle Program Coordinator Around the Pacific The WPRFMC loggerhead sea of many nations operate in On the other side of the Pacific, turtle workshop, March 2-3, 2005, similar areas utilized by foraging Japanese colleagues from the Sea brought together researchers and migrating loggerheads. This Turtle Association of Japan and the from Japan, Mexico, the United unfortunate overlap of fishing and Miyazaki Wildlife Research Group States and Australia