Sea turtles in the Mediterranean Region MTSG Regional Report 2020 © Sea Turtle Photography/Kostas Papafitsoros Editors: Paolo Casale, Sandra Hochscheid, Yakup Kaska, Aliki Panagopoulou Marine Turtle Specialist Group 1 Recommended citation for this report: Casale P., Hochscheid S., Kaska Y., Panagopoulou A. (Eds.) (2020). Sea Turtles in the Mediterranean Region: MTSG Annual Regional Report 2020. Report of the IUCN-SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group, 2020. Recommended citation for a chapter of this report: AUTHORS (2020). CHAPTER-TITLE. In: Casale P., Hochscheid S., Kaska Y., Panagopoulou A. (Eds.). Sea Turtles in the Mediterr Region: MTSG Annual Regional Report 2020. Report of the IUCN-SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group, 2020. 2 Table of Contents REGIONAL OVERVIEW .............................................................................................................. 4 ALBANIA ................................................................................................................................. 24 ALGERIA .................................................................................................................................. 35 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ................................................................................................... 42 CROATIA ................................................................................................................................. 48 CYPRUS - REGION A ................................................................................................................ 55 CYPRUS - REGION B ................................................................................................................ 81 EGYPT ..................................................................................................................................... 99 FRANCE ................................................................................................................................. 115 GREECE ................................................................................................................................. 143 ISRAEL ................................................................................................................................... 164 ITALY ..................................................................................................................................... 170 LEBANON .............................................................................................................................. 193 LIBYA ..................................................................................................................................... 205 MALTA .................................................................................................................................. 210 MONACO .............................................................................................................................. 234 MONTENEGRO ..................................................................................................................... 240 MOROCCO ............................................................................................................................ 246 SLOVENIA ............................................................................................................................. 253 SPAIN .................................................................................................................................... 258 SYRIA .................................................................................................................................... 276 TUNISIA ................................................................................................................................ 286 TURKEY ................................................................................................................................. 303 3 REGIONAL OVERVIEW Paolo Casale1, Sandra Hochscheid2, Yakup Kaska3, Aliki Panagopoulou4,5 1 Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Via A. Volta 6, I-56126, Pisa, Italy 2 Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Marine Turtle Research Centre, Via Nuova Macello, 80055 Portici, Italy 3 Pamukkale University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology, Denizli, Turkey 4 ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society, Athens, Greece 5 The Leatherback Trust, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA General remarks The Marine Turtle Specialist Groups Regional Reporting initiative aims to gather information from all all Regional Management Units (RMUs) updating on the current status and knowledge for all sea turtle populations (RMUs) in such a manner that it is presented in a standardized form and made available to the public. In the case of the Mediterranean Region, which is the focus of the present report it is essentially an update of the previous reports, published in 2010 (http://iucn- mtsg.org/publications/med-report/) and 2018 (https://www.iucn-mtsg.org/regional-reports). The Mediterranean Sea is a semi-enclosed sea connected with the Atlantic Ocean through the Straight of Gibraltar and the Red Sea via the Suez Canal. It has a coastline of 46,000 km and is surrounded by 21 countries. Three species of sea turtle frequent the Mediterranean: loggerheads (Caretta caretta), greens (Chelonia mydas) and leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea). There are also occasional encounters of olive and Kemp’s ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea and Lepidochelys kempii). Loggerheads and greens are the only two species with established populations in the region, belonging to 2 separate RMUs (CC- Med and CM- Med). The region is also visited by loggerheads from the North Atlantic and and North-east Atlantic RMUs (Casale et al., 2018) and by green turtles from the East Atlantic RMU. Leatherback turtles are rare, but regular visitors as they enter the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar in search of food (DC-ATL, not known which Atlantic RMU). The current report presents updated data following the guidelines provided by the MTSG Co-Chairs, where each country/Territory is represented as an independent chapter structured according to a predetermined outline and a standard spreadsheet of tables. All data presented originate from published sources – no anecdotal reports are included. Published data are those that have already appeared in any type of material that can be cited (including gray literature, internal reports in any language, etc.). A total of 22 Mediterranean countries/territories have been identified and included in this Report. For 3 countries/territories the provided information was updated in 2018 or 2019 (Table 2). Cyprus is represented as a single chapter consisting of region A and region B. All other countries are referred to information included in the first Mediterranean report (2010) (http://iucn- mtsg.org/publications/med-report/). 4 Table 2. Overview of Mediterranean Country Chapters and Information submitted Country abbreviations Country used in Table 1 YEAR OF UPDATE Albania AL 2020 Algeria AG 2020 Bosnıa & Herzegovına BH 2020 Croatia HR 2020 Cyprus Region A CY_A 2020 Region B CY_B 2019 Egypt EG 2020 France FR 2020 Greece GR 2019 Israel IL 2018 Italy IT 2020 Lebanon LB 2020 Libya LY 2020 Malta MT 2020 Monaco MC 2020 Montenegro MG 2020 Morocco MA 2020 Slovenia SI 2020 Spain ES 2020 Syria SY 2020 Tunisia TN 2020 Turkey TR 2020 5 1. RMU: Loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) Mediterranean 1.1. Distribution, abundance, trends 1.1.1. Nesting sites Nesting activity is concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean basin with Greece, Turkey and Cyprus exhibiting the highest levels of nesting. Libya is probably a site of high levels of nesting activity (Hamza, 2010; Casale et al. 2018), however most of its 1,450 km coastline of mostly sandy beaches has not yet been fully assessed. Secondary nesting sites are found in Tunisia and Israel, while there are no recent reports on other countries where some nesting is known to occur such as Lebanon, and Egypt. In recent years, loggerhead turtles are consistently exhibiting low levels of nesting activity at locations in the western Mediterranean basin (Spain, Italy as per the present report, but also France and Malta). 1.1.2. Marine areas Loggerhead turtles can be encountered throughout the entire Mediterranean region. The highest density of loggerhead turtles appears to occur in the westernmost part of the Mediterranean Sea (from the Alboran Sea to the Balearic Islands), the Sicily Straight, the Ionian sea, the Gulf of Gabès in Tunisia, the Adriatic Sea, and the south-east coast of Turkey. Juvenile loggerheads originating from the Atlantic rookeries mostly remain within the westernmost part of the Mediterranean. 1.2. Other biological data Age at sexual maturity for loggerheads has been estimated at 21-34 years. Average clutch size is 110 eggs and mean hatching success ranges between 56 and 86%. A comrehensive review including all most recent research on loggerhead and green turtles is included in Casale et al. (2018). 1.3. Threats 1.3.1. Nesting sites Coastal development and associated activies as well as non-human predation continue to persist as threats at all countries where nesting occurs (Table 1). 1.3.2. Marine habitats The negative impact of the incidental capture of turtles in fishing gear persists as a highly important threat, with recent studies estimating total annual number of captures to 132,000 resulting in 44,000 deaths per year for all gear combined. Intentional killings of turtes are reported for all countries