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
When they are in coastal or marine waters, loggerhead turtles are affected by a completely different set of human
activities that include discharges of toxic chemicals and other pollutants into the marine ecosystem; underwater
explosions; hopper dredging, offshore artificial lighting; entrainment or impingement in power plants; entanglement
in marine debris; ingestion of marine debris; boat collisions; poaching, and interactions with commercial fisheries.
Of these, interactions with fisheries represents a primary threat because of number of individuals that are captured
and killed in fishing gear each year.
Loggerhead sea turtles are also captured and killed in commercial fisheries. In the Pacific Ocean, between 2,600 and
6,000 loggerhead sea turtles are estimated to have been captured and killed in longline fisheries in 2000 (Lewison et
al. 2004). Shallow-set Hawai'i based longline fisheries are estimated to have captured and killed several hundred
loggerhead sea turtles before they were closed in 2001. When they were re-opened in 2004, with substantial
modifications to protect sea turtles, these fisheries were estimated to have captured and killed about fewer than 5
loggerhead sea turtles each year. Between 2004 and 2008, shallow-set fisheries based out of Hawai'i are estimated to
have captured about 45 loggerhead sea turtles, killing about 10 of these sea turtles. A recent biological opinion on
these fisheries expected this rate of interaction and deaths to continue into the foreseeable future (<strong>NMFS</strong> 2008).
Loggerhead sea turtles have also been and are expected to continue to be captured and killed in the deep-set based
longline fisheries based out of Hawai'i and American Samoa.
Shrimp trawl fisheries account for the highest number of loggerhead 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 163,000 loggerhead sea turtles are captured in shrimp trawl fisheries each year in the
Gulf of Mexico, with 3,948 of those sea turtles dying as a result of their capture. Each year, several hundred
loggerhead sea turtles are also 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 combine to capture
about 2,000 loggehead sea turtles each year, killing almost 700; the health effects of being captured on the sea turtles
that survive remain unknown.
In the pelagic environment, loggerhead sea turtles are exposed to a series of longline fisheries that include the U.S.
Atlantic tuna and swordfish longline fisheries, an Azorean longline fleet, a Spanish longline fleet, and various fleets
in the Mediterranean Sea (Aguilar et al. 1995, Bolten et al. 1994, Crouse 1999). In the benthic environment in
waters off the coastal U.S., loggerheads are exposed to a suite of fisheries in federal and state waters including trawl,
purse seine, hook and line, gillnet, pound net, longline, dredge, and trap fisheries.
Like all of the other sea turtles we have discussed, loggerhead sea turtles are threatened by domestic or domesticated
animals that 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.
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