Endangered Turtle Species: Why Are They Disappearing and What Can We Do to Help?

Of the 356 known turtle species, up to 160 were listed as endangered and 50 critically endangered. This article only covers a small fraction of those species lingering on extinction's edge.

1. Radiated Tortoise. They dominated the forests and shrublands of Madagascar. Its physical description often involved high-domed carapace (shell) marks with yellow lines radiating from a central dark plate. The body is yellow with a dark patch on the forehead. Based on current statistics, they are locally extinct in around 40% of the island area where they had previously lived; if conservation efforts are not taken, this species will be extinct within the next 50 years.
2. Painted Terrapin. Native turtles of Indonesia, they are also found in surrounding countries like Malaysia and Thailand. They exhibit sexual dimorphism which means the male turtles looked strikingly different from females. Males have a purely gray carapace, black markings, gray skin, and a distinct orange-red cap. Meanwhile, the females have brownish-tinted carapace, brown-yellowish skin, and light orange cranial cap. During breeding seasons, males developed a “mustache-like” marking on their upper beaks and additional red streaks on the neck. They are listed as one of the 25 most endangered turtles on earth and have remained on this list for the past thirteen years. When turtle patrols strolled across the coast of Indonesia last year, they only found the track of no more than ten adult painted terrapins.
3. Chinese Three-Striped Box Turtles. Also called Golden Coin Turtles, they are commonly found in China and Northern Vietnam. The general physical appearance is described to have a brown carapace with three longitudinal black stripes, although the colour of the shells range from golden yellow to olive green. Males have a thicker tail and brilliant orange patches around the eyes. Due to the growing rarity, these turtles are highly valued in trade and were sold (illegally) for large sums of money therefore deriving its name. An estimated 500 turtles exist in the wild and that number is still consistently declining.
4. Arakan Forest Turtles. A species distributed from Arakan State in southern Myanmar to Bangladesh. They are relatively small, with plain dark brown skin and carapace. Its special and noteworthy feature is its sharp, long claws. This turtle species was presumed extinct for decades, but it was a recent discovery in an Asian food market that some of these turtles still survived, and by 2021, about a thousand of them were detected in regions in Myanmar. Many were immediately protected in local wildlife sanctuaries.
5. Geometric Turtles. They were only found in the Western Cape Town of South Africa, living in low-shrublands called renostervelds. The carapace is decorated with a pattern of yellow stars against its dark background with dull yellow arms, legs, and underbelly. Females are usually larger, reaching up to 15 centimeters in length while typical males grow to a maximum of 10 centimeters. Approximately two to three thousand were left in their natural habitat, and the rest died out or were displaced. Having lost over 97% of its habitats within a decade, it was listed as a critically endangered species as early as 2011.

What caused the endangerment and extinction? Is it purely due to human intervention?

The survival rate of turtles wasn’t high without human intervention. From the moment turtles were nested as eggs, among the 50-200 eggs laid, 20% never hatched; this is why the partial responsibility of survey conductors was digging up nests of foul-smelling dead turtle nests, in which most baby turtles die under the sand. For the ones fortunate enough to make it out of the hole, they faced the hideous task of trekking toward the ocean considering they were, on average, the size of ping-pong balls. Along the way, debris, pitfalls, and predators like crabs and seagulls killed roughly 50% of those who climbed out. Once the selected few crawled into open water, further challenges like adverse ocean currents and larger predators like fish, sharks, dolphins, and whales consumed the small turtles as food. Less than 10% of these turtles can survive until breeding age, they have to safely grow for at least two decades. Thus, for example, if a nest buried 1000 eggs, only 800 hatches, 400 reach the water, 200 progress toward adulthood, and only 20 can survive to breeding age. Yet these are all probability WITHOUT human interference. So, even in a hypothetical world without human beings, turtles are rare creatures owing to their harsh, unfavorable life cycle.

Human interruptions are also hard to neglect and insert greater harm on the turtle species than they can bear. From beach development, plastic trash in the ocean, poaching, overfishing, inappropriate disposal of long nets, and leakage of noxious chemicals like crude oil, the sum of all factors has pushed the survival rates of turtles to less than 1%. Furthermore, before the Endangered Species Act was signed in the 1970s, hundreds of turtles of all kinds were killed for any outrageous reasons imaginable; some were sold as luxurious gifts in the form of decorations, bracelets, and pieces of jewelry. Boots were made of turtle flippers, and even oils from turtle fat were used in face creams. Turtle meat became the favorite sea of the time and appeared in all types of menu items like turtle soups, turtle pies, and fried turtle nuggets. The Act exerted everlasting influence and served as a cornerstone in turtle protection efforts in later yeast by outlawing all these activities in North America.

Things we can do to contribute to turtle conservation efforts:

1. Turtle excluder device. Since turtles have to return to the surface for breathing, they easily drown when caught in nets. This innovation seeks to reduce unnecessary turtle casualties when fishing for shrimps and other common fishes by providing an escape route for larger sea animals once they are trapped inside. They can be shuttled out of the confined space through a special channel attached to the nets.
2. Turtle-safe lighting. These light-emissioners use longer wavelengths of light in the red-orange spectrum and are less luminous in the dark as compared to traditional lamps stationed around the beach. It can distract and disorientate young sea turtles and lead them astray from their meander toward the ocean. Artificial light flickers are easily mistaken as moon reflection on the sea surface, causing sea turtles to go in the utterly wrong direction and be killed on an erroneous journey.
3. Stop littering on the beach and maximum waste reduction in the house for many remnants often will be washed into the sea. Trashes like plastic, rubber, string, and other non-decomposable materials entangle hatchlings and suffocate larger turtles in the ocean.
4. Do not disturb sea turtle nests marked on different beach locations. Prevent children from excavating these sites without permission and report instances of disturbance or dead turtles to the local turtle conservancy.
5. Support turtle conservatory organizations like the Marine Turtle Protection Program by funding or enrolling as a volunteer in the turtle patrol team to conduct nationwide surveys and recordings for turtle populations.
6. Encourage different countries to pass similar laws like the Endangered Species Act to prohibit people from hunting turtles for marketing purposes. Raise awareness concerning endangered turtle species to give them a chance to come back to nature.

Ending on a positive note, according to the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the annual test count for loggerhead sea turtles displayed a chronic growth pattern upwards and green turtles have just reached a peak year in 2015 where in Florida alone, almost thirty thousand nests were detected on the coastlines and beaches. Hence, everyone has the share to play a part in saving turtles by making small, conscious efforts to protect their habitats and reduce pollution.

References:

https://www.treehugger.com/critically-endangered-turtle-species-4858569

https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/radiated-tortoise

https://turtlesurvival.org/news/species-spotlight-painted-terrapin/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.mongabay.com/2016/08/pulling-the-stunningly-beautiful-painted-terrapin- back-from-the-brink/amp/

https://turtlesurvival.org/news/notable-new-hatch/#:~:text=Because%20the%20species%20is%20highly,in%20l arge%20numbers%20in%20China

https://turtleconservationfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/top25turtlesprofiles.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgkXlnqiVQE&t=331s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-KmQ6pGxg4&t=197s