SAVING THE loggerhead sea turtle

Loggerhead sea turtles make some of the longest known journeys of any sea turtle species. Adapted for these lengthy migrations, North Pacific loggerheads have a small shell and an enlarged flipper. Each year they migrate more than 7,500 miles between nesting beaches in Japan and feeding grounds off the coast of Mexico. Along the way, they must navigate past millions of the longline hooks set in the world’s oceans.

Ocean-borne longline fishing vessels targeting swordfish and tuna deploy thousands of baited hooks on lines that can extend for more than 60 miles. These hooks catch and kill not just swordfish and tuna but thousands of sea turtles, seabirds, marine mammals, and sharks. Gillnet fisheries likewise entangle and drown many of these species, including the loggerhead. The Center has repeatedly initiated litigation to curtail commercial fishing practices off the West and East coasts of the United States and in Hawaii. Following one successful lawsuit, longline fishing for swordfish was prohibited along the West Coast. However, once we get relief for the besieged turtles in one location, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposes to reopen these destructive fisheries elsewhere. It’s been a shell game, but we’ll persist until turtles are no longer drowning in commercial fishing gear.

While loggerhead sea turtles are threatened throughout their range, they're particularly imperiled in the North Pacific Ocean, where they're geographically isolated and genetically distinct from loggerheads in the Atlantic, Indian, and South Pacific oceans. In 2007 we filed a petition to list North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles as endangered, as well as to increase protections in key nesting habitat. In October 2009, the National Marine Fisheries Service agreed to respond to our petition by February 2010. The Center and allies also sued the Fisheries Service to impel it to protect imperiled sea turtles from the Gulf of Mexico’s longline fishery — and in April 2009, the agency ordered a six-month emergency closure of the fishery.