A study published this month estimates that the number of sea turtles accidentally caught and killed in United States coastal waters has declined by an estimated 90 per cent since 1990.

This is a dramatic reduction achieved in fisheries where specific regulations have been implemented to reduce bycatch. The report, published in the scientific journal Biological Conservation, is the first attempt to make a cumulative estimate of sea turtle bycatch and mortality from interactions with U.S. fisheries. 

Researchers at Duke University's Project GloBAL (Global By-catch Assessment of Long-lived Species) and Conservation International (CI) compiled available information reported by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for managing US fisheries, to estimate how many sea turtles were taken as bycatch by U.S. fishermen between 1990 and 2007. Bycatch is the accidental capture and injury of marine animals in fishing gear that are not the target catch species.

“The reduction of bycatch and mortality shows important progress by NMFS, which serves as a model for reducing sea turtle bycatch in other parts of the world.”

 —Elena Finkbeiner, a PhD student at Duke and lead author of the paper

The researchers estimated that 4,600 sea turtles currently perish each year in U.S. coastal waters, but nevertheless represent a 90-percent reduction in previous death rates. The scientists credit the reduced impact on sea turtles to bycatch reduction measures implemented in many fisheries over the past 20 years, in addition to critical declines in domestic fishing efforts. Overall, turtle bycatch, including all fatal and non-fatal interactions, has been reduced by roughly 60 per cent. 

Before measures to reduce bycatch were put in place, total sea turtle takes surpassed 300,000 annually, killing more than 70,000 of these unintended captures across more than 20 fisheries that fish in U.S. waters in the Atlantic Ocean (from the Gulf of Mexico to the border with Canada) and Pacific Ocean (along the West coast and around Hawaii). Shrimp trawls in the Gulf of Mexico and Southeastern U.S. alone accounted for up to 98% of all takes and deaths during the past two decades.