NMFS Biological Opinion on U.S. Navy training ... - Govsupport.us

FINAL PROGRAMMATIC BIOLOGICAL OPINION ON U.S. NAVY ACTIVITIES IN THE HAWAII RANGE COMPLEX 2008-2013
the Hawai’ian Islands and the distribution of toxic benthic dinoflagellates (Prorocentrum spp.) known to produce a
tumor promoter, okadaic acid (Landsberg et al. 1999). Fibropapillomatosis is considered to decrease growth rates in
afflicted turtles and may inhibit the growth rate of Hawai’ian green turtle populations (Balazs et al. 1998).
ANTHROPOGENIC THREATS. Three human activities are known to threaten green sea turtles: overharvests of individual
animals, incidental capture in commercial fisheries, and human development of coastlines. Historically, the primary
cause of the global decline of green sea turtles populations were the number of eggs and adults captured and killed
on nesting beaches in combination with the number of juveniles and adults captured and killed in coastal feeding
areas. Some population of green sea turtles still lose large number of eggs, juveniles, and adults to subsistence
hunters, local communities that have a tradition of harvesting sea turtles, and poachers in search of turtle eggs and
meat.
Directed harvests of eggs and other life stages of green sea turtles were identified as a “major problem” in American
Samoa, Guam, Palau, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of
the Marshall Islands, and the Unincorporated Islands (Wake, Johnston, Kingman, Palmyra, Jarvis, Howland, Baker,
and Midway). In the Atlantic, green sea turtles are captured and killed in turtle fisheries in Colombia, Grenada, the
Lesser Antilles, Nicaragua, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Bräutigam and Eckert 2006); the turtle fishery along the
Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, by itself, captures more than 11,000 green sea turtles each year for the past 10 years
(Bräutigam and Eckert 2006, Lagueux 1998).
Severe overharvests have resulted from a number of factors in modern times: (1) the loss of traditional restrictions
limiting the number of turtles taken by island residents; (2) modernized hunting gear; (3) easier boat access to remote
islands; (4) extensive commercial exploitation for turtle products in both domestic markets and international trade;
(5) loss of the spiritual significance of turtles; (6) inadequate regulations; and (7) lack of enforcement (<strong>NMFS</strong> and
USFWS 1998a).
Green sea turtles are also captured and killed in commercial fisheries. Gillnets account for the highest number of
green sea turtles that are captured and killed, but they are also captured and killed in trawls, traps and pots, longlines,
and dredges. Along the Atlantic coast of the U.S., <strong>NMFS</strong> estimated that almost 19,000 green sea turtles are captured
in shrimp trawl fisheries each year in the Gulf of Mexico, with 514 of those sea turtles dying as a result of their
capture (see Table X). Each year, several hundred green sea turtles are captured in herring fisheries; mackerel, squid,
and butterfish fisheries; monkfish fisheries; pound net fisheries, summer flounder and scup fisheries; Atlantic pelagic
longline fisheries; and gillnet fisheries in Pamlico Sound. Although most of these turtles are released alive, these
fisheries are expected to kill almost 100 green sea turtles each year; the health effects of being captured on the sea
turtles that survive remain unknown.
Green sea turtles are also threatened by domestic or domesticated animals which prey on their nests; artificial
lighting that disorients adult female and hatchling sea turtles, which can dramatically increase the mortality rates of
hatchling sea turtles; beach replenishment; ingestion and entanglement in marine debris; and environmental
contaminants.
124