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National Fish and Wildlife FoundationBusiness Plan for Sea Turtle Conservation

June 11, 2009

NFWF Sea Turtles Biz Plan.indd 1 8/12/09 12:53:30 PM

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What Is a Business Plan?A business plan serves two broad, primary functions. First, it provides specific information to those (e.g., prospective investors) not familiar with the proposed or existing business, including its goals and the management strategy and financial and other resources necessary to attain those goals. Second, a business plan provides internal guidance to those who are active in the operation of the business, allowing all individuals to understand where the business is headed and the means by which it will get there. The plan helps keep the business from drifting away from its goals and key actions through careful articulation of a strategy.

In the context of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s conservation efforts, business plans represent the strategies necessary to meet the conservation goals of Keystone and other initia-tives. Each business plan emphasizes the type(s) and magnitude of the benefits that will be realized through the initiative, the monetary costs involved, and the potential obstacles (risks) to achieving those gains. Each of the Foundation’s business plans has three core elements:

Conservation Outcomes: A concrete description of the outcomes to which the Foundation and grantees will hold ourselves accountable.

Implementation Plan with Strategic Priorities and Performance Measures: A description of the specific strategies that are needed to achieve our conservation outcome and the quantitative measures by which we will measure success and make it possible to adaptively revise strategies in the face of underperformance.

Funding and Resource Needs: An analysis of the financial, human and organizational resources needed to carry out these activities.

The strategies and activities discussed in this plan do not represent solely the Foundation’s view of the actions necessary to achieve the identified conservation goals. Rather, it reflects the consensus or majority view of the many federal, state, academic or organization experts that we consulted with during plan development.

In developing this business plan, the Foundation acknowledges that there are other ongoing and planned conservation activities that are aimed at, or indirectly benefit, keystone targets. This busi-ness plan is not meant to duplicate ongoing efforts but, rather, to strategically invest in areas where management, conservation, or funding gaps might exist in those broader conservation efforts. Hence, the aim of the business plan is to support the beneficial impacts brought about by the larger conser-vation community.

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SummaryThe Sea Turtle business plan describes a comprehensive 10 year strategy to guide NFWF’s conserva-tion investments to achieve measurable results that will reverse the declining trends and increase population sizes of select sea turtle populations. The current initiative builds on this past NFWF investment and focuses on eight populations of five species in the Western Hemisphere: leather-backs, Kemp’s ridleys, loggerheads, and hawksbills in the North Atlantic and leatherbacks, logger-heads, hawksbills and black turtles (a distinct green turtle subspecies) in the Eastern Pacific. Based on declining numbers of nesting females over three generations, the eight populations of focus are listed globally on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals as either Endangered (a decline of 50% or more) or Critically Endangered (a decline of 80% or more).

The Foundation will focus on three overarching strategies to address the major threats to sea turtle populations and will lead to sustainable population levels:

1: Reduce incidental capture in fishing gear: support incentive based approach to the develop-ment and implementation of turtle friendly fishing gear.

2: Reduce direct exploitation of adult turtles by creating incentives to reduce or eliminate poaching, hunting and directed fishing of sea turtles, where appropriate.

3: Reduce or eliminate direct exploitation of sea turtle eggs: support increased nest protec-tion through increased law enforcement, development of alternative livelihoods, reduction of feral dogs and other nest predators, and improved outreach and education.

It is estimated that a new investment of $20 million over 10 years would result in an average 30% increase in the populations of North Atlantic leatherback, Kemps ridley and North Atlantic loggerhead turtles; and will generate vital information needed for the development of implementation of strate-gies that will propel the additional 5 populations on to a rebuilding trajectory. It is estimated that half of this budget, or $10 million, will be needed to implement the strategies to be developed for the populations of leatherbacks, loggerheads, hawksbills and black turtles in the Eastern Pacific.

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ContentsWhat Is a Business Plan? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Conservation Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Conservation Outcomes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Implementation Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Funding Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Long Term NFWF Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Literature Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Additional Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

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Conservation NeedSix of the world’s seven species of sea turtles are found in the Western Hemisphere. Once abundant in tropical and temperate oceans, these species are vulnerable to extinction as a result of decades of intense exploitation, habitat alteration, marine pollution and incidental capture in fisheries. In 1970 the Kemp’s ridley, hawksbill and leatherback were included on the list of species protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA); the loggerhead, green and olive ridley were given ESA protection in 1978. While these populations only spend a portion of their life cycle in U.S. waters, through its sup-port for research, international agreements, and grant-making, the United States plays a critical role in global sea turtle conservation.

The underlying challenge of conserving sea turtles is to protect and manage animals that mature late in life, migrate substantial distances in their lifetimes, and face a suite of natural and man-made threats. Programs to safeguard nesting females and their eggs on beaches and reduce interactions with fisheries at sea have prevented extinction at the species level. Numerous projects demonstrate the success of sea turtle conservation over time, but in the absence of protection, many individual, unique nesting populations have been reduced to remnant numbers or lost altogether.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has administered an international sea turtle funding program in the Western Hemisphere in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for over ten years. NFWF has worked to evaluate and improve its already successful sea turtle grant-making by working with the Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG) and partners in The State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT) report. As part of this effort NFWF gathered regional experts of the MTSG to establish population for each species. The group mapped 52 populations from the 7 recognized species of marine turtles. In this business plan we will refer to specific priority populations of sea turtles, that are comprised of one or more stocks (sub-population unit) and nesting sites. The populations were prioritized accord-ing to conservation need and potential for NFWF investments to have a measurable contribution to address that need.

The current initiative builds on this past investment and focuses on eight populations of five species in the Western Hemisphere: leatherbacks, Kemp’s ridleys, loggerheads, and hawksbills in the North Atlantic and leatherbacks, loggerheads, hawksbills and black turtles (a distinct green turtle subspe-cies) in the Eastern Pacific. Based on declining numbers of nesting females over three generations, the eight populations of focus are listed globally on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals as either Endangered (a decline of 50% or more) or Critically Endangered (a decline of 80% or more).

This Business Plan provides detailed strategies for Northwest Atlantic populations of leatherback, log-gerhead and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. Strategies for these populations were the first to be drafted due to the significant availability of data for these populations versus the availability of others. In the near future, NFWF plans to expand strategic planning efforts to include Caribbean hawksbills and Eastern Pacific leatherbacks, loggerheads, hawksbills, and black turtles. Information gaps needing to be filled in order to build strategies for these populations will be built into guidelines for upcoming funding cycles.

The major threats to survival of these eight populations in the North Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific are:

Incidental sea turtle — fishery interactions (known as bycatch) in gillnet, trawl, longline, ●dredge, and pot and trap fisheries; these fisheries capture, injure and kill juvenile, sub-adult and adult turtles.

Unsustainable egg collection and nest predation, often in excess of 50% of nests per season. ●

Killing of large animals for meat and other products in Central America, the Caribbean, and ●northwest Mexico.

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The capture, injury and mortality of these target populations in fishing gear needs to be reduced. Loggerheads and leatherbacks spend more time in the open ocean and thus interact more frequently with pelagic fisheries such as longlines and driftnets. International longline fleets capture thousands of turtles annually, with the result that Pacific leatherbacks and Atlantic and Pacific loggerheads are declining. Trawls and gillnets capture all species, often in very significant numbers. A study from Duke University under Project Global has discovered that the sheer volume of artisanal gillnets used globally has the potential to be one of the highest source of bycatch mortality. Bycatch assessment and prioritization of these smaller-scale vessels that are subject to less management and occur on a broader geographic scale is a priority for addressing this significant threat.

Egg collection on leatherback nesting beaches is a major threat, especially in the Eastern Pacific where nearly half of the eggs produced are poached each year. Previously-funded NFWF projects on the beaches have demonstrated that it is possible to reduce impacts to 10% or less (the amount thought to be sustainable for most species) but coverage of key nesting sites and long-term solutions are still needed. While harder to quantify, in Pacific Mexico black turtles are still heavily exploited for meat and hawksbills are purposefully killed for tortoiseshell in both the North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific.

North Atlantic Populations

North Atlantic Leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea): Today large numbers of North Atlantic leatherbacks nest in French Guiana, Suriname, Trinidad, and along the west coast of Africa in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Smaller nesting populations are found in the United States, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and scattered sites in the Caribbean. Experts divide the Northern Atlantic leatherback population (shown in green on the map in Figure 1) into four distinct nesting stocks (based on DNA): Florida, Northern Caribbean, Western Caribbean, and Southern Caribbean/Guyana Shield/Trinidad. Long-term monitoring indicates that three of these stocks are increasing while the fourth in the Western Caribbean in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama is declining (Troëng et al, 2004; TEWG, 2007). Leatherbacks are at risk from longline, gillnet, trawl and pot fisheries throughout the North Atlantic. The declining stock in the Western Caribbean is also subject to egg collection and the killing of nesting females. Overall the population is increasing and numbers 5,266 – 14,644 females nesting annually. For the purposes of this business plan the nesting sites in West Africa that mix with the Southern Caribbean stock of the North Atlantic population will not be included in population estimates and strategies.

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Figure 1. Map of the five populations/management units of Leatherback turtles and their range taken from Wallace, Finkbeiner, and DiMatteo; in preparation.

Kemp’s ridleys (Lepidochelys kempii):The Kemp’s ridley is restricted to the Gulf of Mexico and the waters of the eastern United States. In 1947 40,000 females nested en masse at the species’ major nesting beach at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico but by the 1970s the nesting population had collapsed as a result of long-term egg exploitation and capture by U.S. and Mexican shrimp fleets. Mexico instituted beach protection in 1968, but nesting declined until 1985 when fewer than 300 females came ashore. By the early 1990s U.S. and Mexican shrimp trawlers were required to use turtle excluder devices (TEDs) to prevent drowning of turtles caught in nets. With protection on land and at sea, the population began to increase. In 2004, 3,000 females nested at Rancho Nuevo; by 2008 the population had increased to 7,400 nesters. In recent years the small population of Kemp’s ridleys nesting at Padre Island, Texas, has more than doubled to 200 females.

Although the Kemp’s ridley has become increasingly secure, threats remain. For 40 years Kemp’s rid-ley eggs in Rancho Nuevo have been removed from natural nests on the beach to more secure incu-bation areas to increase hatchling production. Nesting beach management needs to focus on natural production. While the adoption of TEDs in Mexican and U.S. fisheries has greatly reduced bycatch, Kemp’s ridleys continue to be captured, injured and killed by numerous fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic seaboard.

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North Atlantic Loggerheads (Caretta caretta):The five loggerhead stocks which nest in the Western Atlantic make-up one of the world’s two larg-est loggerhead populations (referenced in yellow in Figure 2). Within the United States loggerheads nest from southern Virginia to Texas, with about 90% of nesting taking place in Florida. Loggerheads in the United States represent four of the region’s five nesting stocks: Northern, Peninsular Florida, Northern Gulf, and Dry Tortugas. The fifth, the Greater Caribbean assemblage, is composed of all nesting groups within the Wider Caribbean but outside the United States.

During the last decade loggerhead nesting in the United States has fluctuated from about 11,460 to 21,950 females per year (NMFS & USFWS, 2008). Between 1989 and 1998, the number of nests in Florida increased by 25 – 27% in response to protection. Between 1998 and 2008, however, the pop-ulation declined by 41% (FFWC, 2008). Because these declines have occurred on the same beaches where leatherback and green turtle nesting is increasing, scientists conclude changes in loggerhead populations are the result of incidental capture in U.S. and international fisheries (NMFS & USFWS, 2008; Witherington et al., 2009).

Figure 2. Map of the nine populations/management units of loggerhead turtles and their ranges taken from Wallace, Finkbeiner, and DiMatteo; in preparation.

Caribbean Hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata):Caribbean hawksbills are found throughout the Wider Caribbean in large and small nesting aggrega-tions (see Figure 3). Hawksbills have been hunted extensively for tortoiseshell, and many populations worldwide are significantly reduced from historical numbers. After decades of intense fishing, Cuba reduced its take from 5,000 to 500 hawksbills a year in the early 1990s. Since then, many depleted

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Caribbean stocks have stabilized and some have begun to increase. In recent years the Caribbean regional population has been increasing, with about 5,500 females nesting annually. The region’s largest nesting population in the Yucatan Peninsula inexplicably declined from 1999 to 2004 and then stabilized. Hawksbills are still hunted in some areas of the Caribbean, but the single greatest threat to the species may be accidental capture in artisanal fisheries, especially gillnet fisheries.

Figure 3. Map of the four population/management units of hawksbill turtles and their range taken from Wallace, Finkbeiner, and DiMatteo; in preparation.

Eastern Tropical Pacific Populations

Due in part to the funding support of the Foundation, NOAA and the USFWS, three of the four Atlantic populations described above are stable or increasing throughout their range over the last 20 years with some exceptions at specific beaches as highlighted in this plan. For the North Atlantic log-gerhead, where the population has again begun to decline in the last 10 years, there is a high level of population information and conservation prioritization efforts that have identified what is needed to again stabilize this population.

In contrast, all but one of the Eastern Pacific populations represented in this business plan, namely leatherbacks, loggerheads, and hawksbills, are in steep decline and face regional extinction. While these populations are of higher conservation concern than those in the North Atlantic, as a group there is less known about their population dynamics and the threats they face, and less local capac-ity available to implement conservation programs. This makes it difficult to develop business plans for these stocks. Recent focused attention by NFWF’s International Sea Turtle Conservation Fund and others in this region has begun to build critical capacity, community awareness, political will, baseline assessments and priority setting that will help fill gaps and allow better targeting of future funding. Conservation capacity building, bycatch reduction and protection of large nesting assemblages are known critical need areas throughout the region.

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Eastern Pacific Leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea):During the past 25 years, the Eastern Pacific leatherback has suffered a dramatic decline. Leatherbacks nest in Mexico and throughout Central America and migrate throughout the Pacific basin south to Chilean waters (see in Figure 1). The Mexican Pacific nesting assemblage, considered the largest in the world in the early 1980’s, has seen a reduction from several thousand females per season (Pritchard, 1982) to a few dozen females estimated in 2007 – 2008.

Major factors implicated in the decline are the intensive egg harvest along the population’s distribu-tion range and high mortality of reproductive adults at nesting beaches and along their migratory route through capture in pelagic fisheries.

Eastern Pacific Loggerheads (Caretta caretta):North Pacific loggerheads nest exclusively in Japan where censuses indicate a 50 – 90% decrease in nesting females over the past three generations to fewer than 2,000/year, qualifying the population for the IUCN’s critically endangered status (Kamezaki et al. 2003). The juvenile stage of the North Pacific loggerhead lasts several decades during which turtles may migrate across the North Pacific (Bowen et al. 1995). Although wide-ranging during their lifetimes, many Japanese-born loggerheads spend the majority of their time in a nursery “hotspot” off the Baja California peninsula, where intense fishing overlaps with the turtles’ critical nursery habitat (see Figure 2). As a result, cata-strophically high bycatch occurs; in the Santa Rosa longline and Puerto López Mateos gillnet fleets, 1,500 – 3,000 loggerhead turtles were estimated to be killed per year in 2005 and 2006 (Peckham et al. 2008) representing the highest documented bycatch and stranding rates for sea turtles worldwide (Peckham et al. 2008).

According to a recent NMFS Biological Opinion, as few as 37 to 92 large juveniles killed per year would “appreciably increase the extinction risk of North Pacific loggerheads” (NMFS 2004). Given that minimum annual loggerhead mortality due to bycatch in the two small-scale fleets observed (>1,500 loggerheads/yr) is an order of magnitude higher, eliminating bycatch in the coastal fisheries of the Baja California peninsula is essential for the persistence of the North Pacific loggerhead population.

Eastern Pacific Hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata):Eastern Pacific hawksbill turtles are thought to nest and forage throughout the coastal waters of Mexico to Ecuador. They face a high likelihood of extinction and are the most imperiled sea turtle spe-cies in the Eastern Pacific Region (Nichols 2003). As recently as 2007, many sea turtle scientists con-sidered the hawksbill to be ecologically and commercially extinct in this region (Shester 2007), despite the fact that directed efforts to seek out and study the population had never been undertaken.

The Foundation began building capacity to recover the Eastern Pacific hawksbill by sponsoring the cre-ation of the “Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative” (referred to as ICAPO, its Spanish acronym) to spear-head research and conservation. Recent ICAPO population assessments have improved the conserva-tion outlook for this critically endangered population. Previously unknown nesting sites that are orders of magnitude higher than previous total population estimates have been discovered. Large information gaps persist, however, and there is an urgent need to quickly learn about the biology and critical habi-tats of this population in order to effectively design and implement management strategies.

Eastern Pacific Greens/Blacks (Chelonia mydas):Although nesting in Mexico and the Galapagos is currently stable, the already depleted population of black turtles is under threat from intense hunting in Mexico. It is estimated that 35,000 turtles die in the hands of poachers annually in Baja California, with 8,000 to 9,000 dying during the period between Lent and Easter, during which turtle meat is often used as a substitute for red meat. The principle markets for sea turtle meat include many Mexican states, as well as the states of California and Arizona in the U.S.

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Conservation OutcomesThe logic framework in Figure 4 was constructed with the help of experts for the North Atlantic leath-erback. Based on their recommendations, NFWF has identified the most important threats to this pop-ulation as incidental bycatch from fisheries and the harvest of eggs and sea turtles for the black mar-ket. Literature reviews and interviews with sea turtle experts familiar with the remaining seven popu-lations addressed in this business plan point to similar threats of varying intensity across all stocks.

Conservation targets are being identified for each population in this portfolio in consultation with rel-evant experts as was done for the North Atlantic leatherbacks above. Initial targets for the Kemps ridley, North Atlantic loggerhead and Caribbean hawksbill populations were taken from review of recently updated recovery plans under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and IUCN Redlist assessment documents; these will be modified as appropriate following expert input. For Eastern Pacific sea turtle populations the initial priority is to turn steep declines into stable and eventually increasing tra-jectories while infrastructure and research is underway to determine appropriate 10 year population targets for each species.

North Atlantic Leatherbacks

A comprehensive report released by the Turtle Expert Working Group in 2007 indicates North Atlantic leatherbacks currently number 5,266 – 14,644 nesting females. The two largest nesting assemblages in the Guianas and Trinidad are increasing. The 10-year goal for North Atlantic leatherback conser-vation is an overall nesting population of 20,000 – 56,000 females that is stable or increasing over time. This target, while not “completely recovered,” as defined by sea turtle biologists, is the range for which the population should be able to continue an upward trajectory on its own with current or diminished levels of intervention. This target also provides a buffer for what experts consider to be a stable population. This is important in that if the current, increasing trajectory changes to a decline, managers will have time to react (an estimated 5 – 7 years on average before the population sinks to critical levels. This population target will be met by:

Quantifying and reducing by 40% over the next 10 years incidental capture in fisheries to ●ensure that nesting increases are not undermined.

Reducing egg collection for markets in Central America and for personal consumption ●throughout Honduras, the Caribbean, and Columbia for key nesting beaches to levels at or below 10% of nests laid. This will help ensure that each of the four major nesting assem-blages is stable/increasing and resilient to stochastic events.

Kemp’s ridley

A new Draft Recovery Plan for the Kemp’s ridley should be available in 2009. In 2008 approximately 7,400 Kemp’s ridleys nested at Rancho Nuevo. Over the last 10 years the annual rate of increase of this assemblage has been 14.5%. The 10-year goal for the Kemp’s ridley is an overall nesting popu-lation of 20,000 females that is stable or increasing over time. 10,000 nesting females nesting per year at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, an increase of 26% over the 2008 total., and a stable/increasing nest-ing population nesting at Padre Island, Texas are the key steps to achieving this outcome. To ensure population stability and resiliency over time, this goal will be met by:

Characterizing and reducing incidental capture throughout the Gulf of Mexico and along ●the U.S. East Coast; and

Replacing hatchery operations of Kemp’s ridley eggs in Mexico with natural beach conser- ●vation for long-term stability without human intervention.

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While the relative increases needed to achieve this goal is a smaller margin than other species pre-sented in this plan, the challenge will be to maintain this trajectory while encouraging management of natural nesting as currently all nests are moved to hatcheries in the larger nesting assemblages. This conversion is needed for the long-term sustainability of this species.

North Atlantic Loggerheads

In Florida, containing the largest nesting assemblages for this population, current estimates of annual nesting are approximately 6,800 – 10,487 females per year. From 1989 through 2006 this population declined at a rate of about 1.6% per year. Other nesting sites are reporting even steeper declines for this population. The 10-year goal for Western North Atlantic loggerhead conservation is an overall nesting population of 45,000 – 54,000 females that is stable or increasing over time. This represents between a 30% – 54% minimum increase to the population. To ensure population stability and resil-iency over time, this goal will be met by:

Support research to quantify the impacts of incidental capture for the population; and ●

Reduce incidental capture in fisheries to a point determined by experts that is sustainable ●to the population.

Caribbean Hawksbill

Current estimates show the annual nesting population in the Wider Caribbean is approximately 5,500 females/year and a stable or increasing trend in the region.

The 10-year goal for Caribbean hawksbill conservation is an overall nesting population of 30,000 females that is stable or increasing over time. This represents a 50% increase to this population in 10 years. To ensure population stability and resiliency over time, this goal will be met by:

Characterizing and reducing incidental capture in key foraging grounds in the Wider ●Caribbean; and

Reducing the capture of hawksbills for the tortoiseshell trade by curtailing trade in key ●areas of Central America and the Caribbean.

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Eastern Pacific Leatherbacks

The Eastern Pacific Leatherback population has declined more than 90% in the last two decades (Schillinger et al. 2008). This decline is suspected to be caused by extensive egg collection and fish-ery bycatch mortality. The immediate conservation goal for the Eastern Pacific leatherback is to sta-bilize the population and increase capacity for research and implementation of conservation efforts so that a population goal can be determined. This goal will be met by:

Convening the existing network of available experts to identify conservation gaps; ●

Building capacity and political will for implementing assessment and mortality ●reduction strategies;

Assessment and reduction strategies for egg harvest throughout the population range; and ●

Assessment and reduction strategies for gillnet and other coastal and pelagic fisheries inci- ●dental capture along their migratory route.

Eastern Pacific Loggerhead

North Pacific loggerheads nest exclusively in Japan where censuses indicate a 50 – 90% decrease in nesting females over the past three generations to fewer than ~2,000/year, qualifying the population for the IUCN’s critically endangered status (Kamezaki et al. 2003).

The immediate conservation goal for the Eastern Pacific Loggerhead is to significantly reduce the extensive bycatch along the Baja Peninsula while other threats to this population can be assessed and prioritized by experts. This goal will be met by:

Increased awareness among fishers and their families of the Pacific-wide impacts of their ●local bycatch. This has already resulted in one of the largest bottom-set long lining fisher-man retiring his gear at the savings of thousands of loggerheads; and

Testing of alternative gear with the gillnet fleet to reduce their bycatch to 40% or less of ●current levels.

Eastern Pacific Hawksbill

Eastern Pacific hawksbill turtles are thought to nest and forage throughout the coastal waters of Mexico to Ecuador. Eastern Pacific hawksbills face a high likelihood of extinction and are the most imperiled sea turtle species in the Eastern Pacific Region (Nichols 2003).

The immediate conservation goal for the Eastern Pacific hawksbill is to stabilize the population and increase capacity for research and implementation of conservation efforts so that a population goal can be determined. The first meeting of the ICAPO network identified the following key gaps that need to be filled to saving this population:

Increasing the scientific knowledge about sites where hawksbills congregate and identify ●priority habitats;

Increasing the capacity for conservation efforts targeting hawksbills; ●

Convene growing body of experts to provide specific conservation actions to be taken for ●conservation and recovery of the population; and

Quantify and reduce direct exploitation of EP hawksbills and their eggs. ●

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Eastern Pacific Green/Black

Depleted populations of black turtles are relatively more secure than in previous years with nesting stable in Mexico and the Galapagos, but the species is under threat from intense hunting in Mexico. It is estimated that 35,000 turtles die in the hands of poachers annually in Baja California, between 8,000 and 9,000 die during the period between Lent and Easter.

In the last 10 years the prognosis for the Eastern Pacific green or black turtle has changed from a declining population to one that is stabilizing. Now that the risk of extinction is less eminent, iden-tification and prioritization of the actions needed to further increase and recover this population to healthy numbers is needed. The initial priorities for this population will be to reduce the significant threat of turtle harvest in Mexico, maintain and continue to build capacity for conservation throughout the region, and assemble a group of experts to define a 10 year goal for the population. This goal will be met by:

Convening the growing body of experts to provide specific conservation actions to be ●taken for conservation and recovery of the population; and

Reducing poaching to 10% or less of nesting populations in Mexico. ●

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Implementation PlansNorth Atlantic Leatherbacks

The following strategies describe the two major threats faced by leatherbacks in the North Atlantic and the ways in which they should be addressed. Although leatherbacks face a suite of threats, the priorities for securing viable populations into the future are reducing incidental capture in fisheries and direct exploitation.

Key Strategy 1 — Reduce Fishery Interactions with LeatherbacksNorth Atlantic leatherbacks feed in the Northern Hemisphere and interact with fisheries during migra-tion and on their foraging grounds. Incidental capture in fisheries has the potential to undermine the gains made to date and reducing this threat is critical to the continued recovery of leatherback populations. Experts have identified Trinidad, Suriname, French Guiana and Canada as “hot spots” for leatherback bycatch and the Foundation has laid groundwork to address these concerns in Canada and Trinidad. While these initial areas of high leatherback bycatch have been identified, increased attention must be focused on elucidating migratory routes and feeding areas to determine additional priority areas where leatherbacks overlap with fisheries. This is a particular priority for declining western Caribbean nesting assemblages.

Strategy 1a: Reduce incidental capture in gillnets An estimated 3,000 leatherbacks are killed in Trinidad alone by gillnet fisheries consisting of surface driftnets and bottom-set nets each year. Researchers have quantified surface driftnet mortality and have been testing changes in gear in Trinidad since 2008 but little is known about the interaction with gillnet fisheries in French Guiana & Suriname which have even larger assemblages of leather-back turtles.

Activity 1: Development and implementation of alternative gear in Trinidad

Another year of work is needed in alternative gear testing before developing regulations to cod-ify these modifications and converting 100 boats to new gear. Building on this success, leath-erback bycatch in the bottom-set fishery needs to be subsequently addressed for 100 additional boats. We estimate that these investments will lead to 85% reduction in bycatch mortality.

Activity 2: Quantify and address capture in French Guiana & Suriname

French Guiana is the only country with a European Union exemption for gillnet use. With the support of fishermen, capture in gillnets needs to be quantified.

Strategy 1b: Reduce incidental capture in pot fisheriesLeatherback interactions with pot fisheries in U.S. and Canadian waters needs to be quantified to inform fishers and resource managers of the extent of the problem and times and locations where interactions occur. Canadian waters are important for foraging leatherbacks and interaction rates are thought to be highest in these waters for this population.

Activity 1: Quantify capture in Canadian pot fisheries

In addition to completing a population assessment currently underway, researchers and fish-ers need to develop a strategy to collect bycatch data across the industry and discuss pos-sible solutions for reducing interactions.

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Activity 2: Quantify capture in U.S. pot fisheries

Information on the extent of entanglement, the actual number of interactions, and times and locations where interactions occur is needed for the waters off New England and the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers and fishers need to develop a strategy to collect bycatch data across the industry and discuss possible solutions for reducing interactions.

Activity 3: Produce an assessment on interactions with pot fisheries in North America

An assessment of priority fisheries and locations from the data collected in the first two activ-ities together with possible solutions for reducing bycatch, such as the use of stiffer ropes and time and area closures, will assist implementation of solutions to this problem to the areas of highest significance for impact to the goal.

Strategy 1c: Reduce capture in trawl fisheries in the Guianas Turtle Exclusion Devices (TEDs) are inexpensive, highly effective net inserts that reduce sea turtle mortality in trawls by allowing entrapped animals to swim free of the nets. TEDs also benefit marine ecosystems by reducing the capture of finfish. Countries like Suriname export shrimp to the U.S. and thus are obligated by U.S. Public Law 101-162 to require their shrimp fishers to ensure the incidental capture of sea turtles is comparable to U.S. programs.

Activity 1: Quantify capture and mortality in Suriname and support full imple-mentation of TEDs.

Port interviews are needed to rapidly assess leatherback bycatch and the extent to which TEDs are used in Suriname. If problems are discovered, fisher outreach and mitigation efforts will be needed.

Activity 2: Quantify capture and mortality in trawls in French Guiana

A turtle workshop conducted for the Guyana Shield in February 2009 may provide some information on whether TEDs are being used in French Guiana. Researchers suspect few, if any, TEDS are used there now. A rapid assessment of turtle bycatch through port interviews is needed.

Strategy 1d: Reducing incidental capture in pelagic longline fisheries On the high seas leatherbacks are at risk from entanglement and, to a lesser extent, to hooking in longlines in the North Atlantic where the fleets of more than 65 countries fish for tuna, swordfish and other pelagic species. Today, annual estimate of leatherback lethal and non-lethal interactions with longline fisheries range from 30,000 to 60,000, with a significant number of these interactions occur-ring in the North Atlantic (Lewison et al., 2004). The International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is the most important fishery management organization in the Atlantic; the majority of ICCAT fisheries are longline fisheries.

U.S. research during the last decade demonstrates changes in longline fishing gear and bait signifi-cantly reduce sea turtle capture, injury and mortality. Although U.S. longliners are required to use bycatch reduction methods such as circle hooks and fish bait (in lieu of squid), other fleets are not required to do so. In addition, U.S. boats carry line cutters, de-hookers and dip nets to remove gear from turtles that are encountered to increase their chances of survival. The activities identified in this section focus on ICCAT fleets; these activities will also reduce loggerhead capture in these same fish-eries. Additional experimentation on ways to reduce sea turtle interactions with longlines is needed as these methods are not appropriate for all fisheries as they have the potential to significantly increase bycatch of other animals (like sharks) where they overlap with habitats of target species.

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Activity 1: Quantify sea turtle bycatch in Spain’s North Atlantic longline fisheries

In 2003 ICCAT passed a resolution calling upon its members to report sea turtle bycatch, but few nations comply with this resolution. Outreach to Spain to encourage its extensive fleets to report and quantify all sea turtle-fishery interactions would be an important initial step in reducing sea turtle bycatch in EU fleets.

Activity 2: Encourage the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) to promote sea turtle bycatch reduction

FAO needs to promote better ICCAT reporting on interactions with sea turtles so bycatch is quantified and areas of greatest interaction are documented.

Activity 3: Produce FAO report detailing sea turtle bycatch reduction in fisheries

After the production of “Guidelines to Reduce Sea Turtle Mortality in Fishing Operations” in 2004, FAO announced it would produce a more detailed second report to provide better guid-ance. Funding is needed to undertake this review and incorporate useful information now available, such as U.S. guidelines on reducing sea turtle bycatch in longline fisheries. This report will help to reduce the capture of all species of sea turtles in multiple types of fishing gear. The report will be needed in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

Activity 4: Experimentation on ecosystem-safe ways to fish for pelagic species

Changes in the way international longline fleets interact with non-target species need to be developed in a holistic manner so that protection for one group of animals does not come at the expense of others. The most preferable approach would be experimentation undertaken at the international levels to ensure widespread acceptance of the results, including studies on gear style and material; bait choice; method of gear deployment; structure of gear in the water.

Strategy 1e: Assess and identify additional priority interaction hotspotsMore data on the movements of the population nesting in Costa Rica and Panama (and possibly fur-ther south) is needed to determine where the declining Western Caribbean leatherback nesting turtles overlap with fisheries.

Activity 1: Improve data collection on migration and movements of Western Caribbean leatherbacks

Within the next five years ~20 nesting females should be fitted with satellite transmitters and tracked to identify migration and foraging assemblages for this portion of the population and where these priority areas overlap with fisheries.

Key Strategy 2 — Reduce direct exploitationSea turtles and their eggs are utilized by coastal residents in many areas of Central and South America and the Caribbean. While exploitation is generally for personal consumption in the Caribbean, in Central and South America it is for both personal and commercial use. Eggs are valued for their protein and are desirable as purported aphrodisiacs. Law enforcement plays an important role in reducing exploitation, but finding economic alternatives and changing cultural attitudes are key to reducing use for the long-term. The most successful projects are those where coastal communi-ties derive direct economic benefits and indirectly enjoy a better quality of life.

Egg utilization and the killing of larger animals may be significant factors in the decline of the Western Caribbean stock which consists of 1,280 – 2,865 females nesting annually. This population appears to be declining, despite the fact leatherbacks and their eggs have been protected in Costa Rica for decades.

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Strategy 2a: Reduce poaching of nests on priority beachesThe exploitation of sea turtles and eggs is primarily the result of cultural mores, weak governance and enforcement, and the lack of economic alternatives. Programs which provide economic benefits and alternatives to sea turtle product use have proven highly effective. Education and outreach are key to changing attitudes and generating support.

Activity 1: Increase law enforcement in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the collection of leatherback eggs has been banned since 1948 and hunting has been prohibited since 1984 (Troëng et al. 2004). From 1987 to 2003 illegal egg collection fell dramatically on relatively well-protected beaches (Troeng et al., 2004), has increased since 2003 (D. Evans, pers. comm.). In 2002 Costa Rica passed a new law to incarcerate egg poachers but its success is dependent upon arrests made on the beach. Improved monitor-ing and better law enforcement is estimated to reduce egg poaching on monitored beaches by 6% – 10% per year, with a 60% reduction in 10 years.

Activity 2: Provide economic alternatives to poaching in Costa Rica

Developing economic alternatives such as involving collectors in research, and support-ing ecotourism and crafting has shown positive results in reducing egg poaching and turtle hunting. This activity should focus on Costa Rican beaches where work with communities is already underway, including the beaches of Tortuguero, Pacuare, and Gandoca.

Activity 3: Outreach and Education activities in Costa Rica

Outreach and education can go a long way toward changing cultural attitudes. A key compo-nent of this work is to involve residents in sea turtle communities in activities on the nesting beach so that they have hands-on experience with sea turtles. Kids from the local schools should be involved in research as well as beach cleanups, games and competitions. The goal of this program should be to engage surrounding communities in these programs over the next five years.

Activity 4: Stabilize the nesting population in Panama

Although not many eggs are collected in Panama where semi-autonomous tribal communities manage these natural resources, egg consumption by semi-feral hunting dogs is a significant problem. Dogs prey on turtle nests because they are not fed by their owners outside the hunting season. Enhanced protection and spaying programs are estimated to reduce nest destruction in Panama by 5% per year, with a 35% reduction in 10 years.

Strategy 2b: Reduce the killing of larger sea turtles Leatherback meat is not popular because it has a strong and oily taste but it is eaten in some areas. Coastal residents also use leatherback oil to seal boats and treat respiratory disorders. On occasion egg poachers kill nesting females so they do not have to wait until the eggs are laid.

Activity 1: Protect larger turtles in Costa Rica

Developing economic alternatives like involving collectors in research, supporting ecotour-ism and crafting has shown positive results in reducing egg poaching and turtle hunting. The development of community alternatives to hunting need to be developed at Pacuare and Gandoca.

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Kemp’s ridleys

The following strategies describe the two major threats faced by Kemp’s ridleys and discuss the activ-ities needed to address them and secure viable populations for the future.

Key Strategy 1 — Incidental capture in fisheries The capture of Kemp’s ridleys in fisheries throughout the Gulf of Mexico needs to be quantified. Little is known about the capture of ridleys in Mexican fisheries, but it is expected that the number of interactions with U.S. and Mexican fisheries will increase as population increases.

Activity 1: Identify areas of turtle fisheries overlap in Mexican waters

Mexican shrimp trawlers in the Gulf are 90% compliant in using turtle excluder devices (TEDs), however little is known about compliance in Mexican coastal waters. Identifying priority habi-tats is critically important for determining where ridleys overlap with fishing activities.

Activity 2: Quantify interactions with Mexican fisheries

Kemp’s ridleys are at risk from various fisheries, including gill nets, trawls, and hook and line fisheries. Once areas of overlap are identified in Activity 1 the level of interaction will need to be characterized and quantified so that mitigation measures can be identified and prioritized. Areas identified in Activity 1 as extensively used by Kemp’s ridleys should be candidates for designated protection.

Key Strategy 2 — Restoration of natural nesting beach conservation The relocation of nests to hatcheries to protect them from poachers and predators has been a key component of the Kemp’s ridley conservation program in Rancho Nuevo. Since the late 1960s this massive manipulation of nests has succeeded in producing hundreds of thousands of hatchlings. Today a small portion of nests are left in situ where they were laid, but the majority are still moved to protected corrals. With Kemp’s ridley recovery well underway, the program should ensure an increasing number of nests are allowed to incubate naturally each year. The loss of some nests to predators is to be expected under this natural regime, but it is the goal of sea turtle recovery to ensure all species perform their ecosystem functions, including the consumption of eggs by other species with minimal human intervention.

Activity 1: Expanding in situ conservation

Outreach and initial monitoring will be necessary ensure that poaching does not resume on Kemp’s ridley nests and to determine that natural predation levels are at a sustainable level for this population.

North Atlantic Loggerheads

The following strategy describes incidental capture in fisheries, the major threat faced by North Atlantic loggerheads, and discusses the activities needed to address bycatch to arrest the decline of this population.

Key Strategy 1 — Incidental capture in fisheries Loggerheads spend many years in the open ocean and are at risk in the North Atlantic from capture in numerous international fisheries. The following strategy describes incidental capture in fisheries, the major threat faced by North Atlantic loggerheads, and discusses the activities needed to address bycatch to arrest the decline of this population.

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Strategy 1a: Reducing capture from high seas longline fisheryChief among North Atlantic fisheries is the ICCAT international longline fleet which is estimated to have 150,000 to 200,000 interactions with loggerheads each year in the Atlantic, many of which occur in the North Atlantic (Lewison et al., 2004). Four of the seven activities presented below directly overlap with conservation actions to conserve leatherbacks.

Activity 1: Encourage ICCAT longline boats in the North Atlantic to carry gear to release hooked and entangled turtles

Post-hooking injury and mortality from trailing lines that cause strangulation or limb ampu-tation or from hooks which are ingested or imbedded externally is a significant risk to log-gerheads. U.S. information and video footage on the construction and use of dehookers, dip nets and line cutters should be widely distributed and translated into Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. The support of the ICCAT Scientific Committee and key members such as the Chair of the Commission and the United States is needed.

Activity 2: Quantify sea turtle bycatch in Spain’s North Atlantic longline fisheries

In 2003 ICCAT passed a resolution calling upon its members to report sea turtle bycatch, but few nations comply with this resolution. Outreach to Spain to encourage its extensive fleets to report and quantify all sea turtle-fishery interactions would be an important initial step in reducing sea turtle bycatch in EU fleets.

Activity 3: Encourage the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) to promote sea turtle bycatch reduction

FAO needs to promote better ICCAT reporting on interactions with sea turtles so bycatch is quantified and areas of greatest interaction are documented.

Activity 4: Produce FAO report detailing sea turtle bycatch reduction in fisheries

After the production of “Guidelines to Reduce Sea Turtle Mortality in Fishing Operations” in 2004, FAO announced it would produce a more detailed second report to provide better guid-ance. Funding is needed to undertake this review and incorporate useful information now available, such as U.S. guidelines on reducing sea turtle bycatch in longline fisheries. This report will help to reduce the capture of all species of sea turtles in multiple types of fishing gear. The report will be needed in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

Activity 5: Produce placards on safe turtle handling and release

Crews of international fleets need to be informed on ways to reduce sea turtle post-interac-tion injury and mortality such as cutting away lines and entangling gear. Laminated placards should be produced and provided to all boats in the ICCAT fleets. This information will be needed in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

Activity 6: Experimentation on ecosystem-safe ways to fish for pelagic species

Changes in the way international longline fleets interact with non-target species need to be developed in a holistic manner so that protection for one group of animals does not come at the expense of others. The most preferable approach would be experimentation undertaken at the international levels to ensure widespread acceptance of the results, including studies on: gear style and material; bait choice; method of gear deployment; structure of gear in the water.

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Activity 7: Promote circle hooks in shallow-set fisheries for swordfish

Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) is higher in shallow-set fisheries for swordfish than in the deeper set fisheries for tuna, making the swordfish fishery a priority. U.S. research indicates sword-fish catch can increase with circle hooks and mackerel bait, but international fleets resist using this gear as they have not been able to replicate U.S. results. In collaboration with the Scientific Committee of ICCAT and the United States, outreach is needed to promote addi-tional experiments and testing for shallow-set swordfish fisheries.

Caribbean Hawksbills

While a population goal is available for the Northern Atlantic hawksbill population, at the time of this writing, specific result chains and priority strategies had not yet been mapped. Initial interviews with key experts for this population have identified bycatch and trade in turtle shell as significant threats to this population. The Foundation will work to maintain support for mitigation efforts to reduce these known threats while working to convene a corpus of experts to map out specific conservation priorities and strategies to reach the 10 year population goal.

Sea Turtles in the Eastern Pacific

While the significant conservation need of the hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead and black sea turtle populations in the Eastern Tropical Pacific is acknowledged in this business plan, at the time of writ-ing there was insufficient information available to establish a conservation target for 10 years or to map out specific strategies to achieve these targets. However, information is available on many of the priority actions that are needed and the gaps that need to be filled in order for conservation activities of greatest impact to be identified.

Key Strategy 1 — Build assessment and conservation capacity in the Eastern PacificUnlike activities along the U.S. coastline or in the Caribbean, the Eastern Tropical Pacific has no established network for which research and conservation efforts are assessed across population rang-es or are networked for learning and efficiency benefits. Instead, pockets of research and conserva-tion activities are working at varying degrees of effort and building programs from scratch. This has resulted in decreased efficiencies, unknown population trends beyond a beach specific level, non-standardized methodologies and metrics, and an overall lack of communication.

Activity 1: Provide standardized monitoring protocols and data standards

Underway: The Foundation is currently supporting the Sea Turtle Specialist Group and the science committee of The State of the World’s Sea Turtles report (SWOT) to provide mini-mum data standards and suggested monitoring protocols for start-up organizations involved in sea turtle conservation. The grant also includes work to develop a model that will convert existing data to one unified metric so that trend data can be compared across beaches in the region. These products will be tested in 2009 and available to all in 2010.

Activity 2: Convene experts to prioritize conservation actions by population

Underway: While general conservation actions are available across species in the IUCN spe-cies assessment documents, priority actions are not identified at the regional or population level where they are more feasible for implementation. For populations like those in the Eastern Pacific where research data is limited, the compilation of expert opinion that the Foundation is supporting through specific criteria and ‘best available knowledge’ is critical to moving forward. The expert group has met once in 2008 where it mapped out species into populations and developed criteria for prioritization. Prioritization of these populations is being mapped now and the group will meet again to outline priority conservation actions for target populations in June, 2009.

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Activity 3: Establish networks and infrastructure for communication

The Foundation currently supports a hawksbill network that started in 2007 and a black turtle network that started in 1999. The costs/benefits of creating capacity for a broad turtle regional network after the WIDECAST model of the Caribbean should be assessed.

Key Strategy 2 — Address known and identify additional priority bycatch areasIncidental capture from fisheries is threatening all of the populations in the Eastern Pacific Region portfolio. Most of the turtle/fishery interactions have yet to be assessed and prioritized for great-est conservation impact, but in the case of the loggerheads in Baja, Mexico and the hawksbills off El Salvador, the priorities are already clear.

Activity 1: Reduce bycatch of loggerheads in Baja to <40% of current levels

The current levels of bycatch of loggerhead s in Baja are the highest documented in the world. The Foundation has supported assessment and an initial year of mitigation work to address this issue that is showing fishermen support for gear alternatives that have already shown a 50% decrease in bycatch of turtles. This work need to continue to secure bycatch rates below 40% across the fisheries within five years.

Activity 2: Reduce bycatch in largest known assemblage of hawksbills

In 2007 the Foundation sponsored a project in El Salvador that discovered the largest known hawksbill nesting assemblage and changed the prognosis for this population from eminent extinction to one of new hope. Four hawksbills were tagged in 2008 and it was discovered that this large nesting group stays close to the nesting grounds for feeding making the waters off of El Salvador critical habitat. Unfortunately, illegal trawl fisheries and blast fishing occurs in these waters, even in the areas with some legal protection. Efforts are needed to reduce this fisheries interaction to stabilize and increase the last stronghold of this population.

Activity 3: Identify and prioritize key areas of turtle/fisheries overlap

Sporadic assessment work on bycatch has been done for some fisheries and gear types in some geographies, but a systematic approach to prioritizing assessment and bycatch mitiga-tion efforts is needed for all populations.

Key Strategy 3 — Address known and identify additional priority poaching areasDirect exploitation of sea turtles and turtle eggs is threatening all of the populations in this portfolio for the Eastern Pacific Region. Most of the poaching and hunting has yet to be assessed and priori-tized for greatest conservation impact, but in the case of the loggerheads in Baja, Mexico and the hawksbills off El Salvador, the priorities are already clear.

Activity 1: Reduce levels of poaching of hawksbills and eggs to <10%

Even though hawksbill egg collection is illegal in El Salvador, other egg collection is allowed making enforcement difficult. This nesting assemblage is vital to the overall population’s recovery and therefore immediate protection is needed.

Activity 3: Identify and prioritize key nesting areas for protection

Nesting monitoring and protection is conducted on beaches throughout the region but strate-gic prioritization and networking could improve these efforts.

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RisksBycatch Reduction

Risk 1 — Reducing sea turtle bycatch is not an international priority The U.S. government has promoted international longline bycatch reduction for nearly a decade but has had little success in implementing changes. Bycatch reduction receives scant attention at ICCAT because the commission focuses on declining stocks of fish while individual nations focus on their share of allocation. As Canadian law does not require its fishing industry to report interactions with protected species, fishers are concerned that voluntarily reporting sea turtle interactions could restrict their activities. Maintaining interest in species such as the Kemp’s ridley and Atlantic leatherback populations, which are increasing in numbers, is a challenge.

Risk 2 — Changes in fishing technology may not be sustainableUnlike in U.S. jurisdictions, mandated gear changes are not realistic in most developing countries. The enthusiasm and support of fishers is critical to sustaining programs in which gear is modified to safeguard turtles and to getting laws enacted. Even with enacted laws, enforcement is a significant issue and predominantly understaffed in areas we will be working. If new gear is less efficient or more expensive, the program has a reduced chance of being successful.

Harvest of turtles and eggs

Risk 1 — Deterioration of the global economy Tourism is one of the first casualties of recession and thus a framework for economic alternatives that relies heavily on eco-tourism may fail during difficult economic times. Poverty is one of the primary drivers for egg collection as it is perceived as a form of free protein.

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Funding Needs

North Atlantic Sea Turtle Funding Species Benefitted

Funds Needed

Potential Partners

Addressing Incidental Capture

Coastal gill net research, regulations Trinidadsurface driftnets1. bottom-set2.

Leatherback $700,000 WIDECAST, NMFS

Quantify/address gillnet capture in French Guiana & Suriname

Leatherback $150,000 WIDECAST, WWF

Quantify Canadian bycatch in fixed pot fisheries & hold workshop with fixed gear fishers

Leatherback $110,000 Canadian Sea Turtle

Netweok

Quantify U.S. bycatch in fixed pot fisheries Leatherback $80,000NMFS, Ocean

Conservancy, Oceana

Produce report on turtle bycatch in pot fisheries and recommended solutions

Leatherback $90,000NMFS, Ocean

Conservancy, Oceana, WWF

Quantify trawl capture/mortality in Suriname; support TED use

Leatherback $50,000STINASU, WWF, Oceanic Society

Quantify trawl capture/mortality in French Guiana; support TED use

Leatherback $12,000 WWF

Provide training materials for ICCAT longline fleets to encourage safe release of bycaught turtles

Leatherback Loggerhead

$1,200,000ICCAT, NMFS, FAO,

WWF, CCC

Quantify turtle bycatch in Spain’s longline fisheries


$80,000ICCAT, NMFS, FAO,

WWF, Oceana

Involve FAO in promoting ICCAT fleet reporting of turtle bycach


$120,000 NMFS, US DoS, WWF

Produce and publish FAO report detailing methodology for reducing longline and other fisheries bycatch


$370,000 ICCAT, NMFS, WWF

Production and distribution of multi-lingual placards for safe turtle handling


$130,000ICCAT, NMFS,

WWF, CCC

Satellite track 20-25 Western Caribbean leatherbacks from nesting to foraging grounds

Leatherback $150,000NMFS, CCC,

WIDECAST, ANAI

Experiments to reduce sea turtle bycatch in longline fisheries


$3,150,000 ICCAT, NMFS, US DoS

Organize two workshops (Europe and Asia) to promote the use of circle hooks in ICCAT shallow-set fisheries

Loggerhead ICCAT, FAO

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North Atlantic Sea Turtle Funding Species Benefitted

Funds Needed

Potential Partners

Identify overlap of fisheries and Kemp’s ridleys in foraging habitat in Mexico

Kemp’s ridley $250,000Govt of Mexico, NMFS, USFWS, Pronatura de

Peninsula Yucatan

Quantify Kemp’s ridley bycatch in Mexican fisheries

Kemp’s ridley $220,000Govt of Mexico, NMFS, USFWS, Pronatura de

Peninsula Yucatan

Reducing egg and turtle exploitation

Protecting nests in Costa Rica through better law enforcement

Leatherback Hawksbill

$200,000IAC Secretariat,

WIDECAST, ANAI, CCC

Reduce egg collection in Costa Rica through model economic alternatives


$1,500,000IAC Secretariat,

WIDECAST, ANAI, CCC

Reduce the killing of large turtles by providing alternatives to hunting in Costa Rica



WIDECAST, ANAI, CCC

Community outreach and education to reduce egg collection



WIDECAST, ANAI, CCC

Stabilizing nesting in Panama by protecting nests from hunting dogs


$65,000 CCC

Promoting Natural Beach Conservation

Transitioning the protection of Kemp’s ridley eggs in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico from hatcheries to in situ nests

Kemp’s ridley $800,000NMFS, USFWS, Govt

of Mexico

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Eastern Pacific Sea Turtle Funding Species Benefitted

Funds Needed

Potential Partners

Assessment and conservation capacity

Standardized monitoring protocols and data standards

All populations FundedSTSG, SWOT, Conservation International

Convene experts to prioritize conservation actions

All populations FundedSTSG, Conservation

International

Establish networks All populations TBD To be determined

Priority bycatch reduction

Alternate gear in Baja Loggerheads$300,000-$500,000

Pro Peninsula

Reduce bycatch in El Salvador Hawksbills$150,000-$300,000

To be determined

EP bycatch assessment, prioritization, implementation

All populations 10,000,000 To be determined

Priority poaching reduction

New discovered nesting beach protection Hawksbills TBD To be determined

EP poaching assessment and prioritization All populations TBD To be determined

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EvaluationTo better demonstrate results and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our conservation invest-ments, a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation strategy has been incorporated into the entire lifecycle of the Foundation’s initiatives. Our evaluation process occurs at two distinct scales: the individual project level and the initiative as a whole. At each level, we will determine whether the planned actions are achieving the desired outcomes.

At the initiative level, in-house evaluators work with initiative directors and key external partners on initiative design and implementation. We create logic frameworks and results chains to better specify the theoretical underpinnings that are presumed to lead to a successful conservation outcome. Logic frameworks clearly define our conservation targets, key threats needing mitigation, and the primary strategies for achieving success. We then develop results chains which outline anticipated intermedi-ate and long-term outcomes and associated indicators for measuring progress at different stages of the initiative.

At the project level, grant proposals are assessed based on their alignment with initiative goals. Individual projects subsequently funded by NFWF will be evaluated based upon the proposed activi-ties and anticipated outcomes identified in the full proposal and grant agreement. As part of each project’s annual (for multi-year awards) and final reports, individual grantees will provide a summary of completed activities and key outcomes directly to NFWF. These would likely include outcome met-rics identified at the initiative scale.

Because of the numerous extraneous factors operating on biological populations and the time lags between conservation actions and actual changes in population size, the contribution of an individual project to the initiative’s desired population goal often can not be measured directly, especially in the short term. Rather, in most situations, intermediate outcome indicators targeted at mitigation of threats — e.g., changes in landowner management practices or changes in habitat condition such as stream temperature — are used to evaluate the impact of a project. In the coming years, we expect to use the expertise of evaluators to assist grantees in the monitoring of key indicators to ensure that data across individual projects can be scaled up to programmatic and initiative levels.

Periodically, at later stages of a specific initiative’s lifecycle, NFWF evaluators will conduct an in-depth evaluation. The evaluation might assess effectiveness of the initiative strategy, fidelity of the pro-cess (i.e., whether the initiative was implemented as designed), achievement of aggregate outcomes across all projects, and/or the reasons behind any discrepancy between expected and observed outcomes. Findings from both monitoring and evaluation activities will be used to continuously learn from our grant-making and inform future decision-making to ensure initiative success.

The success of this Keystone Initiative for sea turtles in the North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific should be evaluated in terms of the progress made to achieve the goal of stable/increasing nesting popula-tions which are sustainable over time. Reducing the direct exploitation of larger animals and their capture and injury in fisheries will have a more immediate effect on population growth than increased production on nesting beaches. The three North Atlantic populations that are the subject of this plan have been surveyed for two or more decades and thus the changes that occur in populations as a result of conservation actions in this initiative should be apparent.

Three of the four assemblages of North Atlantic leatherbacks are increasing, despite extensive inter-actions with fisheries. Increases in the number of nesting females should continue as activities to reduce bycatch are undertaken. Success will also be measured by the stabilization and eventual increase of the nesting population in the Western Caribbean (S. Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama) which is currently declining.

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North Atlantic loggerheads have experienced a steep 10-year decline. While pelagic longline fisher-ies are taking a very significant toll on juveniles and subadults, other fisheries also capture and kill thousands of loggerheads each year. During the next 10 years, the success of the plan should be measured in percentage declines in capture and arresting the decline of the three largest loggerhead populations in the region.

Quantifying the types of fishing interactions that overlap with Kemp’s ridleys in their developmental and foraging habitat will identify where fisheries problems are occurring or may occur in the future. The Kemp’s ridley nesting population should be expected to continue to increase, even as the nest-ing beach management regime changes from protection in hatcheries to natural in situ conservation. Measures of success can be based on the number of nests hatching naturally.

Evaluation of activities to address incidental capture (bycatch)

The involvement of stakeholders will be key to the success of efforts to reduce bycatch. While fishers are often suspicious of efforts to quantify incidental capture and mortality, a growing number of pro-grams demonstrate the value of collaborative activities between fishers and the sea turtle community.

Figure 5. Results chain for bycatch conservation strategies. A results chain is a chain of logic that illustrates how a specific strategy is presumed to reach a particular conservation outcome. Results chains are used to develop a suite of indicators to show progress at different stages in the initiative.

While reduction of bycatch activities of adult will likely result in measurable increases at nest-ing beaches within 10 years, bycatch reduction to subadult or juvenile age classes will need to be assessed by the level of threat reduction and the anticipated impact to the target population goal. Bycatch mortality will need to be characterized for each prioritized area where critical habitat and fisheries overlap and continually monitored while mitigation efforts are employed.

Indicators: Bycatch reduction will be measured by catch per unit effort.

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Evaluation of activities on nesting beaches

Figure 6. Results chain for nesting beach conservation strategies.

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There are several approaches to increased enforcement, community awareness, and alternative liveli-hoods that can be employed throughout this Keystone. Each strategy has several intermediate steps to establish what is essentially a new environmental ethic moving away from exploiting sea turtles and their eggs. While ‘band-aid’ solutions like collection of eggs for rearing in hatcheries is a short-term solution they are difficult to sustain and a species cannot be considered ‘recovered’ if it must rely on human intervention for reproduction. Therefore, more complex and long-term strategies must be employed to replace these stop-gap measures. At each intermediate step there are indicators of behavioral change, market forces, legal prosecution and level of poverty that will help evaluate the success of the strategy.

For example, the success of programs to develop economic alternatives will depend on the involvement of stakeholders. The intermediate success of these programs can be measured in the number of communities and individuals participating in these activities, the number of established community projects, and the number of people trained to guard nests, develop handicrafts, and provide ecotourism services.

Indicators: The ultimate measure of success is the reduction in egg poaching and hunting, which will be reflected in increased nest production.

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Long Term NFWF SupportThis business plan lays out a strategy to achieve clear outcomes that benefit wildlife over a 10-year period. At that time, it is expected that the conservation actions partners have taken will have brought about new institutional and societal standards and environmental changes that will have set the population in a positive direction such that maintaining those successes or continuing them will be possible without further (or greatly reduced) NFWF funding. To help ensure that the popula-tion and other gains made in 10 years won’t be lost after the exit of NFWF funding, the partnership must seek development of solutions that are long-lasting, cost-effective, and can be maintained at lower levels of funding in the future. Therefore, part of the evaluations of this initiative will address that staying power and the likelihood that successful strategies will remain successful at lower man-agement intensity and financial investment.

The adaptive nature of this initiative will also allow NFWF and partners to regularly evaluate the strat-egies behind our objectives, make necessary course corrections or addition within the 10 year frame of this business plan. In some cases these corrections and additions may warrant increased invest-ment by NFWF and other partners. However, it is also possible that NFWF would reduce or eliminate support for this initiative if periodic evaluation indicates that further investments are unlikely to be productive in the context of the intended outcomes.

The conservation goals outlined in this business plan towards the aforementioned species will guide funding decisions in future NFWF grantmaking. That grantmaking will focus on two key strategies: reducing the most serious threats, and promoting innovative conservation solutions to foraging and nesting turtles. Successful projects will lead to measurable improvements in turtle population numbers.

Given that sea turtle conservation is a long-term investment, the Sea Turtle Keystone will periodically adjust course as needed based upon project findings and advancements in sea turtle science. This adaptive approach will involve divesting in populations that are in less need of attention and increas-ing investment in more populations with a greater need.

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Literature CitedFlorida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 2008. Nest Survey Results Do Not Change Turtle Nesting Trends (http://researchmyfwc.com/features/view_article.asp?id=27537)

James, M.C., A. Ottensmeyer, and R.A. Myers. 2005a. Identification of high-use habitat and threats to leatherback sea turtles in northern waters: new directions for conservation. Ecology Letters 8:195-201.

James, M.C., S.A. Eckert, and R.A. Myers. 2005b. Migratory and reproductive movements of male leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea). Marine Biology 147:845-853.

James, M.C., R.A. Myers, and A. Ottensmeyer. 2005c. Behaviour of leatherback turtles, Dermochelys coriacea, during the migratory cycle. Proceedings of the Royal Society (B) 272: 1547-1555.

Lewison, R.B., S.A. Freeman, and L.B. Crowder. 2004. Quantifying the effects of fisheries on threat-ened species: the impact of pelagic longlines on loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles. Ecology Letters 7:221-231.

Mortimer, J.A. and M. Donnelly. 2008. Marine Turtle Specialist Group 2007 IUCN Red List Status Assessment for the Hawksbill Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).

National Marine Fisheries Service — Southeast Fisheries Science Center. 2001. Stock assessments of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles and an assessment of the impact of the pelagic longline fish-ery on loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles of the western north Atlantic. U.S. Dept. Commerce, NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-SEFSC-455, 343 p.

National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2008. Recovery Plan for the Northwest Atlantic Population of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Caretta caretta). Second Revision. National Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Spring, Maryland.

Shillinger GL, Palacios DM, Bailey H, Bograd SJ, Swithenbank AM, et al. (2008) Persistent leatherback turtle migrations present opportunities for conservation. PLoS Biol 6(7): e171. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060171

Troëng, S., D. Chacón, and B. Dick. 2004. Possible decline in leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea nesting along the coast of Caribbean Central America. Oryx 38:395-403.

Turtle Expert Working Group. 2007. An Assessment of the Leatherback Turtle Population in the Atlantic Ocean. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-SEFSC-55, 116 p.

Witherington, B., P. Kubilis, B. Brost, and A. Meylan. 2009. Decreasing annual nest counts in a glob-ally important loggerhead sea turtle population. Ecological Applications 19 (1): 30-54.

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Additional BenefitsReducing the bycatch of loggerheads, leatherbacks, and Kemp’s ridleys in the North Atlantic will ben-efit all species of sea turtles in the region. In addition, lessons learned in reducing bycatch can be transferred to other areas of the world. Working to reduce bycatch holistically will develop linkages with those who work to reduce the bycatch of other non-target marine species, including marine mammals, sharks and seabirds.

Arresting and reducing sea turtle mortality has important auxiliary benefits for marine ecosystems. Sea turtle mortality in fisheries reduces genetic diversity and weakens marine ecosystems because sea tur-tles are valuable to marine food webs as both prey and predators. Sea turtle populations must also be robust enough for them to fulfill their ecosystem functions in maintaining marine and coastal habitats, such as cropping sea grasses and nourishing the roots of dune vegetation with their eggs.

The programs in this initiative to develop economic alternatives to exploiting sea turtles and their eggs can serve as models for other sea turtle communities. Promoting the protection of natural resources by coastal communities has broad ramifications for the protection of not only turtles but all natural resources in the developing world.

Photo credits: Scott A. Eckert — WIDECAST, National Park Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

NFWF Sea Turtles Biz Plan.indd 2 8/12/09 12:53:30 PM

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AcknowledgementsMark Hudy, Forest Service Elizabeth Macklin, Trout Unlimited Kathy Wolf, Trout Unlimited

This business plan is a NFWF product and has not yet been reviewed by the contributors mentioned here.

Several individuals provided input to the Sea Turtle Keystone business plan and we would like to thank them for their expertise and inpsut into developing this business plan. Specifically we would like to thank Marydele Donnelly from the Caribbean Conservation Corporation who drafted the first version of the business plan and Bryan Wallace from Conservation International was extremely helpful as a reference. We would also like to thank our grantees and members of the Sea Turtle Specialist Group for providing information on life-history, trends, priority setting and recommended strate-gies. Finally we would like to acknowledge the leatherback experts (listed below) from the Caribbean and Latin American region that joined NFWF in developing results chains for the North Atlantic Leatherback population and population goals.

Ana Barragan — Kutzari A.C. Bryan Wallace — Conservation International Carl Lloyd — Ocean Spirits Dan Evans — Caribbean Conservation Corporation Didiher Chacon — WIDECAST Costa Rica Gustave Lopez — Tamar Laura Sarti — CONANP Marydele Donnelly — Caribbean Conservation Corporation Neca Marcovaldi — Tamar Sebastian Troëng — Conservation International Scott Eckert — WIDECAST

About NFWF — The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to funding sustainable conservation initiatives. Chartered by the United States Congress in 1984, NFWF leverages federal grants and private support to achieve maximum conservation impact. Recently, the Foundation — through its Keystone Initiatives — strategically repositioned itself to more effectively capture conservation gains by directing a substantial portion of its investments towards programs that had the greatest chance of successfully securing the long-term future of imperiled species. By lever-aging innovative program design from scientific experts, the Foundation is able to structure conserva-tion programs that consistently achieve measurable and meaningful outcomes. [www.nfwf.org]

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