Just received this, it spells it out (especially to anyone who has ever stayed up most of the might babysitting loggerhead sea turtle nests to make sure the hatchlings go towards the water and not the beach hotel lights........., etc etc.) I think I know some of these people!! 
C
Subject: Fw: HerpDigest Volume #1 Issue #76, Thursday, November 22, 2007
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HerpDigest: The Only Free Weekly Electronic Newsletter That Reports on
The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Science
Volume #1 Issue #76, Thursday, November 22, 2007
Publisher/Editor- Allen Salzberg
A Struggle For The Sea Turtles
We've Worked For Years To Protect Them, So Why Are They Still
Endangered?
By Jerry Adler/NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE/
Nov 20, 2007
They are among the most beloved and pampered of wild reptiles,
transcending ugliness by sheer indomitability. For hundreds of millions
of years turtles have struggled out of the sea to lay their eggs on
sandy beaches, long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate
them, or GPS satellites and marine biologists to track them, or
volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings down to the water's edge lest
they become disoriented by headlights and waddle in the direction of a
motel parking lot instead. A formidable, if metaphorical, wall of
bureaucracy has been erected to protect their prime nesting sites on
the Atlantic coastlines of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. With all
that attention lavished on them, you'd think the darn creatures would
at least have the gratitude not to go extinct.
But Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness, and a report
this year by the Fish and Wildlife Service showed a worrisome drop in
the populations of several of the six species of North Atlantic sea
turtles, notably loggerheads, which can grow to as much as 400 pounds.
The South Florida nesting population, the largest, has declined by 50
percent in the last decade, according to Elizabeth Griffin, a marine
biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted
Oceana and the Center for Biological Diversity to petition the
government to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic
loggerheads from "threatened" to "endangered"-meaning they are in
danger of disappearing without additional help. While action on that
request was pending, the government announced on Nov. 19 that it was
considering an endangered listing for Pacific loggerheads, which nest
primarily on the shores of California and Hawaii.
Which raises the obvious question: what else do these turtles want from
us, anyway? It turns out, according to Griffin, that while we have done
a pretty good job of protecting the turtles for the weeks they spend on
land (as egg-laying females, as eggs and as hatchlings), we have
neglected the years they spend in the ocean. "The threat is from
commercial fishing," says Griffin. Trawlers (which drag large nets
through the water and along the ocean floor) and longline fishers
(which can deploy thousands of baited hooks on lines that can stretch
for miles) take a heavy toll on turtles (as well as other species
of "bycatch," including sharks and even seabirds). Oceana is calling
for more stringent bycatch regulations and the establishment and
expansion of marine sanctuaries off the Atlantic coast.
Of course, like every other environmental issue today, this is playing
out against the backdrop of global warming and human encroachment on
natural ecosystems. The narrow swaths of beach on which the turtles lay
their eggs are being squeezed on one side by development and on the
other by the threat of rising sea levels as the oceans warm. Ultimately
we must get a handle on those issues as well, or a creature that
outlived the dinosaurs will meet its end at the hands of humans,
leaving our descendants to wonder how a creature so ugly could have won
so much affection.
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