WASHINGTON, July 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. federal government set a record yesterday, as wildlife officials designated an additional 685 miles of nesting beach and some 300,000 square miles of ocean as critical habitat for the federally protected loggerhead sea turtle -- the largest such declaration in history.
The newly protected nesting areas include various stretches of beach from Mississippi all the way to North Carolina. Florida, which already sets the bar for sea turtle conservation, sees a few of its protected beaches expanded but no new protected beaches established. The ruling, however, protects several hundred miles of new coastline in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.