{"id":256622,"date":"2025-10-28T13:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/256622\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T13:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:02:11","slug":"green-sea-turtles-made-famous-by-finding-nemo-make-a-stunning-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/256622\/","title":{"rendered":"Green sea turtles, made famous by Finding Nemo, make a stunning recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists who study wildlife are often the bearers of bad news \u2014 this species or that is headed for extinction for the usual reasons, like deforestation<\/a> or climate change<\/a>. Just last week, for example, I wrote about<\/a> new science showing that two valuable coral species in Florida were mostly killed off by global warming.<\/p>\n

But earlier this month, researchers announced<\/a> something overwhelmingly positive: Green sea turtles, the iconic marine species made famous by Finding Nemo that were once at risk of extinction, have bounced back. Dramatically.<\/p>\n

According to researchers at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources<\/a> (IUCN), the leading authority on endangered species, the global population of green sea turtles \u2014 one of the seven sea turtle species found worldwide \u2014 is up 28 percent since the 1970s. IUCN reclassified the sea turtles from \u201cendangered\u201d to \u201cleast concern,\u201d a category reserved for species that are not threatened with extinction and plentiful in the wild.<\/p>\n

Scientists measure sea turtle populations by counting their nests on beaches. And in some regions, such as Florida, the number of them has surged in recent years. In the 1980s, for example, researchers detected only around 40 nests each year in and around Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area along Florida\u2019s east coast. Now, they\u2019re consistently counting more than 20,000 of them, said Kate Mansfield, a professor at the University of Central Florida who runs the monitoring program. \u201cThe green turtles have just gone absolutely, wonderfully, exponentially higher,\u201d Mansfield told me. \u201cI\u2019m cautiously optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Green sea turtle hatchlings on a beach in Turkey. Meric Aktar\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

What\u2019s so remarkable about the recovery is that it shows conservation efforts can actually work, said Nicolas Pilcher, a sea turtle expert. These animals didn\u2019t recover by sheer chance, said Pilcher, who formerly co-chaired the group at IUCN<\/a> that determines the status of marine turtles. Their population boom followed decades of projects to minimize threats, including by restricting certain kinds of fishing gear and turning nesting beaches into protected parks. \u201cWe can do this, we can save a species,\u201d said Pilcher, who also runs a nonprofit in Malaysia called the Marine Research Foundation.<\/p>\n

But there are a few glaring caveats with what is otherwise great news. For one, the recovery of green turtles is not even across the planet. At the largest nesting beach in the Western Hemisphere, located in Costa Rica, the number of green sea turtle nests is plummeting<\/a>, indicating that these animals still face serious threats. Plus, sea turtles live long lives, in some cases reaching 70 or more years old<\/a>. That means scientists need to see these trends sustained for years to come to truly show that greens have recovered, Mansfield said.<\/p>\n

When conservation actually works<\/p>\n

Until recently \u2014 and still today, in many places \u2014 the biggest threat to green sea turtles was the consumption of turtle meat. These iconic marine reptiles were actually a popular food in the US through the early 20th century, according to<\/a> food writer and historian Becky Diamond.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince just one turtle could feed quite a crowd (some weighed over three hundred pounds), turtle soup was frequently the featured dish on inn menus and at large feasts or festivals,\u201d Diamond wrote<\/a> in 2018. \u201cDemand for turtle was so high that hosts would advertise these upcoming events in the city\u2019s newspapers and sometimes even sell tickets in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even as consumption of sea turtles waned in some countries \u2014 in part because the animals became rare and thus harder to find \u2014 other human actions continued to erode their population. Sea turtles would get caught in fishing nets, for example, and eventually drown. The construction of hotels, fancy homes, and other buildings along coastlines, meanwhile, destroyed nesting grounds and polluted them with artificial light. (Nighttime lights tend to disorient<\/a> sea turtles and their hatchlings, making it harder for them to navigate and avoid danger.)<\/p>\n

By the late 1900s, these threats had nearly wiped out green sea turtles, earning them federal protection in the US under the Endangered Species Act in 1978. A few years later, IUCN listed them as endangered globally.<\/p>\n

Read more of Vox\u2019s coverage on marine conservation<\/p>\n

Since then, however, the US government and a number of large conservation organizations \u2014 which tend to be especially focused on big, charismatic species \u2014 jumped into high gear to save green sea turtles. And their efforts apparently paid off.<\/p>\n

There were three main conservation approaches that worked, experts told me, starting with simply protecting the beaches where green sea turtles nest. Florida\u2019s Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge is a good example. The federal government established the refuge in 1991, which limited human development along the coast and the light pollution that comes with it. That means sea turtles can use beaches in the refuge without much disturbance. Many other nesting beaches in the North Atlantic are similarly protected, Mansfield says.<\/p>\n

Another effective approach has focused on the commercial fishing industry, especially in the US. Thousands<\/a> of sea turtles are accidentally caught each year by trawls<\/a> and other fishing nets that target seafood, such as shrimp. And while sea turtles can hold their breath for several hours, they still might drown if they can\u2019t escape. To solve this problem, scientists and fishermen developed modifications for trawl nets \u2014 known as turtle excluder devices \u2014 that give large marine animals a way out. At the same time, regulations in the US required<\/a> that fishermen use circle hooks instead of J hooks for line fishing in some regions. Circle hooks are harder<\/a> for turtles to fit in their mouths and swallow.<\/p>\n

The third approach sought to limit turtle poaching for meat, still common in parts of Asia, Central America, and Africa. Often, the people who harvest turtles are simply trying to make a living. And so, what\u2019s worked to lower hunting in these communities, Pilcher says, is when organizations provide them with an alternative source of income. In Fiji, for example, people who once collected sea turtle eggs to eat or sell are now enlisted by a conservation NGO to protect them<\/a>. \u201cThey go from being the people who are eating the turtles to the people who are conserving the turtles,\u201d Pilcher said.<\/p>\n

Why haven\u2019t other turtles recovered? <\/p>\n

Not everyone was thrilled with the announcement that green sea turtles are no longer endangered. \u201cI don\u2019t like it,\u201d said Rold\u00e1n Valverde, a sea turtle researcher at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n

The takeaway that these species have recovered overshadows a much bleaker picture in one of his key research areas: Tortuguero, a national park along the northern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Tortuguero is the world\u2019s second-largest nesting beach for green sea turtles and the largest in the Western Hemisphere, he said, where researchers used to consistently count more than 100,000 nests each year. Since 2010, the turtle population has quickly declined, dipping below 50,000 nests in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/a><\/p>\n

A green sea turtle on the beach in Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica. Nano Calvo\/VWPics\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The decline is linked to the harvest of sea turtles and their eggs elsewhere in Central America, especially in nearby Nicaragua, said Valverde, who is also the scientific director at a nonprofit called the Sea Turtle Conservancy. People have hunted green sea turtles in Nicaragua for generations, he said, but in the past, their fishing gear was more rustic: boats without motors, for example, and harpoons instead of nets. That meant they caught fewer animals. Now, equipped with more advanced gear, they\u2019re able to collect a larger number of sea turtles. And while harvesting turtles is illegal in most cases, officials don\u2019t adequately enforce the law. \u201cThe impact is significant and now beginning to show in Tortuguero,\u201d Valverde said.<\/p>\n

This is to say: Not all green turtles are doing well.<\/p>\n

Neither are other kinds of sea turtles, for that matter. The six other species \u2014 from leatherback to hawksbill \u2014 are vulnerable to extinction or critically endangered. That raises an important question: Why haven\u2019t they recovered, too?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that keeps me up at night,\u201d Mansfield told me, adding that the answer isn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n

Pilcher suspects it\u2019s partly luck. Many of the beaches that green sea turtles nest on happen to be in countries with stronger governance and more funding for conservation, like the US and Australia. Those places tend to afford more effective protection to wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go somewhere like Australia \u2014 places where the legal infrastructure is strong, robust, enforced \u2014 and those populations are massive and they have a massive impact on the overall survival of the species,\u201d Pilcher said.<\/p>\n

Certain sea turtle species, like the leatherback, also spend more time wandering out at sea, Pilcher said, which could leave them more exposed to fishing.<\/p>\n

Regardless, this shows that the same threats that once nearly wiped out green sea turtles are still present today. And there are newer, complex threats, too, like plastic pollution. Millions of tons of plastic waste end up in the ocean each year \u2014 bags, bottles, food wrappers, etc. \u2014 which turtles sometime mistake for food or eat accidentally. Consuming plastic can kill them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of chomping down on a squid or a crab, they\u2019re chomping down on a chunk of plastic,\u201d Pilcher said. \u201cWe\u2019re finding many turtles that have dozens of pieces of plastic in them. That\u2019s probably going to emerge as a major challenge in the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservation successes are tenuous. Animals can be relieved of one threat only to be driven towards extinction by another. By the early 20th century, for example, the North Atlantic right whale was nearly extinct from hunting<\/a>. Yet now, long after people stopped killing them for their baleen<\/a> and blubber, new threats, such as ship strikes and ropes from crab and lobster fishing, are jeopardizing their existence \u2014 a reminder that the job of protecting species is never really finished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists who study wildlife are often the bearers of bad news \u2014 this species or that is headed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1687,9168,192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-256622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-down-to-earth","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}