Environmental Factors

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The following are the broad hazards that are presently resulting in declines and local extinctions of sea turtles, or are in one way or another slowing or preventing sea turtle recovery:

Fisheries—especially longlines, gill nets and trawls—impact sea turtles virtually everywhere. Bycatch mortality, habitat destruction and food web changes are the most severe of these impacts.

Coastal development alters, damages and destroys sea turtle habitats through nesting beach degradation, seafloor dredging, vessel traffic, construction, and alteration of vegetation.

Throughout the world, people kill sea turtles and consume their eggs for food and for products such as oil, leather and shell.

Marine pollution—plastics, discarded fishing gear, petroleum by-products, and other debris—directly impact sea turtles through ingestion and entanglement. Light pollution disrupts nesting behavior and hatchling orientation, leading to hatchling mortality. Chemical pollutants can weaken sea turtles’ immune systems, making them susceptible to pathogens.

Global warming may impact natural sex ratios of hatchlings; escalate the frequency of extreme weather events; increase the likelihood of disease outbreaks among sea turtles; and result in loss of nesting beaches, destruction of coral reefs and other alterations critical to sea turtle habitats and basic oceanographic processes. Project 2 Texts