Big decline in endangered sea turtles seen

SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Oct. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. marine scientists say they have found an excessively high mortality rate among endangered loggerhead sea turtles in the Baja California area.

University of California-Santa Cruz researchers said nearly 3,000 sea turtle carcasses were found along a 27-mile stretch of coast from 2003-07.

Graduate student Hoyt Peckham, who led the research, said the finding underscores the enormous impact of bycatch (marine life accidentally killed by fishing operations) on sea turtles.

"We saw what are apparently the highest documented stranding and fisheries bycatch rates in the world," he said. "But the high bycatch rates offer us all an unexpected conservation opportunity. By working with just a handful of fishermen to diminish their bycatch, we can save hundreds of turtles."

The study that included Wallace Nichols of the California Academy of Sciences; Adjunct Professor Tim Tinker; David Maldonado Diaz and Alexander Gaos of Grupo Tortuguero, a non-profit conservation group based in La Paz, Bolivia; and Volker Koch and Agnese Mancini of the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur is reported in a special bycatch issue of the journal Endangered Species Research.