Sea turtles were an easily attainable resource and they attracted people to the islands, which were first colonized in the mid-1600s. An example is the once famous green turtle colony of the Cayman Islands, considered to have been the largest nesting population in the greater Caribbean basin. Today some of the largest breeding populations the world has ever known have vanished, or nearly so. Christopher Columbus described the sea turtles he encountered off the coast of Cuba as being “in such vast numbers that they covered the sea”. Seventeenth and eighteenth century mariner records document flotillas of turtles so dense and vast that net fishing was impossible, even the movement of ships was curtailed. Caribbean sea turtle statusĬaribbean populations of sea turtles were described by historical accounts as “inexhaustible”. In characterizing sea turtles as endangered, IUCN draws attention to the conservation needs of sea turtle populations around the world. The overall aim of the Red List is to convey the urgency and scale of conservation problems to policy makers and the public, and to motivate the global community to reduce causal threats. The IUCN “Red List” is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. If we are to reverse the trend toward extinction, governments and civil society need access to organized data. Experts estimate that the current rate of species extinction is 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than normal, and survival is further complicated by a changing climate. Biodiversity loss is one of the world’s most pressing crises. Biodiversity provides humanity with food and fiber, shelter materials, medicine, essential ecological services, and inspiration for everything from engineered flight to nanotechnology to music and poetry.
Why is this information important?Īll aspects of human culture and economy rely on natural resources, many of them nonrenewable.
Visit the MTSG’s Red List page for updated information and links to specific assessment documents. The comprehensive process used by the global scientific community to assess the status of species is complex, and it’s the responsibility of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG), one of more than 100 Specialist Groups and Task Forces that make up the IUCN Species Survival Commission, to undertake regular regional and global evaluations to determine the conservation status of sea turtle species. Hawksbill and Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are classified by IUCN as “Critically Endangered”, a crisis category reserved for species that, among other things, are characterized by having sustained “an observed, estimated, inferred or suspected reduction of at least 80% over the last 10 years or three generations, whichever is the longer.”
GREEN SEATURTLE SERIES
Green and Loggerhead sea turtles are classified by IUCN as “Endangered”, meaning that these species meet a specific series of “listing criteria”, including “an observed, estimated, inferred or suspected reduction of at least 50% over the last 10 years or three generations, whichever is the longer.” Leatherback and Olive Ridley sea turtles are classified as “Vulnerable” at a global scale, but the Northwest Atlantic subpopulation of the Leatherback (which includes the Wider Caribbean Region) is classified as “Endangered” and declining. According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, persistent over-exploitation, especially of adult females on nesting beaches, fatal fisheries interactions, and the widespread collection of eggs are largely responsible for the depleted status of all six Caribbean sea turtle species. Sea turtles throughout the world are severely reduced from historic levels.
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