Drift gillnets are banned in Oregon, Washington, and on the high seas offshore of the West Coast of the US. California, however, still allows drift gillnets, which are indiscriminate curtains of death up to a mile long, to catch swordfish and thresher shark.
Drift gillnets caught and killed an estimated 16 sperm whales in 2010 and now must be re-classified as one of the deadliest fisheries, or a Category I fishery, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act laws. Take action below to support a Category I listing for the deadly California Drift Gillnet Fishery. This new designation clearly identifies drift gillnets as one of the most deadly fisheries in the world and a leading threat to innocent marine mammals and endangered sea turtles.
Marin County has a historic opportunity to address a historic problem, and supporters across the nation can help by adding their name below.
Despite our Marin County’s long-standing leadership as a bastion of environmental protection, Marin’s very own streams and creeks can barely support their once-thriving populations of coho salmon and ocean-run steelhead trout. Fewer than 10% of these species’ baseline numbers remain.
But your voice can protect those precious few remaining fish—while restoring hope for their recovery to sustainable populations.
The County Board of Supervisors is in the final stages of crafting a county-wide ordinance to protect our unique waterways. Unfortunately, the proposed language of this Stream Conservation Area (SCA) Ordinance, falls desperately short of enacting sufficient measures to protect the streams for endangered salmon—and the people who live along their banks. As written, the ordinance allows for significant expansion of development in pristine wildlands. This will not only result in habitat destruction for fish and loss of biodiversity, but it also promotes flooding and erosion that can damage and even destroy the homes and private property that current residents enjoy.
Please help the County help everyone who depends on these creeks. Sign the petition below, even if you live outside of Marin County, asking the Board of Supervisors to pass an ordinance that will enable the coho salmon to avoid what federal biologists have termed “an extinction vortex.”
You can make a difference in the future of the natural resources of Marin County. Want to do more?
Then write a letter, copy and print your letter, sign it and fax it to SPAWN at 415-663-9534 or scan and email to action@SpawnUSA.org. We will then deliver these personally-signed copies to the Supervisors.
TAKE ACTION FOR LOGGERHEADS - DEADLINE MAY 24, 2013
After five years of delay, the federal government finally plans to protect more than 739 miles of critical habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles on their nesting beaches along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts -- where they have been laying eggs for centuries!
Photo: A loggerhead on Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia returns to the Atlantic Ocean. (Photo: USFWS)
No important nesting beaches should be excluded!
Protecting these beaches will go a long way toward ensuring the long-term survival of threatened Northwest Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles that lay thousands of eggs on U.S. shores every year. The populations of these sea turtles have declined dramaticaly over recent decades but number of nests on Florida beaches have increased slightly over the past five years.
However, the USFWS proposal falls short as it excludes critical nesting beaches in Florida's St. John's, Volusia and Indian River Counties due to the existence of voluntary Habitat Conservation Plans. Such plans expire and can lapse due to budget cuts or political agendas.
So it is important that critical habitat be designated across all important loggerhead nesting beaches, including those where voluntary HCPs are in place.
News flash! We recently won an imminent timeline for in-water critical habitat for loggerheads and will soon be asking you to support protection of breeding, feeding and migratory habitat areas later this year!
TAKE ACTION FOR LOGGERHEADS - DEADLINE MAY 24, 2013
After five years of delay, the federal government is finally proposing to protect more than 739 miles of critical habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles on their nesting beaches along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts -- where they have been laying eggs for centuries!
Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) beaches should not be excluded
Protecting these beaches will go a long way toward ensuring the long-term survival of threatened Northwest Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles that lay thousands of eggs on U.S. shores every year. The populations of these sea turtles have declined dramaticaly over recent decades but the number of nests on Florida beaches has increased slightly over the past five years.
However, the USFWS proposal falls short as it excludes critical nesting beaches in Florida's St. John's, Volusia and Indian River Counties due to the existence of voluntary Habitat Conservation Plans. Such plans expire and can lapse due to budget cuts or political agendas.
So it is important that critical habitat be designated across all important loggerhead nesting beaches, including those where voluntary HCPs are in place.
News flash! We recently won an imminent timeline for in-water critical habitat for loggerheads and will soon be asking you to support protection of breeding, feeding and migratory habitat areas later this year!
Photo above: A nesting loggerhead sea turtle returns to the ocean in the Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia (credit US FWS).
Texans is big, and its environmental policies are felt across the state's hundreds of miles of coastline and across the Gulf of Mexico. Two bills working their way through the Texas Legislature, the Bottle Bills, would establish a program to increase plastic bottle recycling for cleaner waters, parks, highways, public lands and sea turtle nesting beaches! Both Senate Bill 645 and House Bill 1473 are "relating to water quality improvement and pollution reduction through beverage container recycling incentives."
Each year 17 billion beverage containers are sold in Texas and only 4 billion are recycled. California already has "Bottle Bill" legislation and reports that over 90% of beverage containers there are recycled! There is no better way to prevent plastic bottles from polluting valuable waterways and beaches than to enact a "Bottle Bill" and provide financial incentives to recycle.
Marin County has a historic opportunity to address a historic problem, and supporters across California can help by sending the email below.
Despite our county’s long-standing leadership as a bastion of environmental protection, Marin’s very own streams and creeks can barely support their once-thriving populations of coho salmon and ocean-run steelhead trout. Fewer than 10% of these species’ baseline numbers remain.
But your voice can protect those precious few remaining fish—while restoring hope for their recovery to sustainable populations.
The County Board of Supervisors is in the final stages of crafting a county-wide ordinance to protect our unique waterways. Unfortunately, the proposed language of this Stream Conservation Area (SCA) Ordinance, falls desperately short of enacting sufficient measures to protect the streams for endangered salmon—and the people who live along their banks. As written, the ordinance allows for significant expansion of development in pristine wildlands. This will not only result in habitat destruction for fish and loss of biodiversity, but it also promotes flooding and erosion that can damage and even destroy the homes and private property that current residents enjoy.
Please help the County help everyone who depends on these creeks. Send the email below, even if you live outside of Marin County, asking the Board of Supervisors to pass an ordinance that will enable the coho salmon to avoid what federal biologists have termed “an extinction vortex.”
You can make a difference in the future of the natural resources of Marin County. Want to do more? Copy and print your letter, sign it and fax it to SPAWN at 415-663-9534 or scan and email to action@SpawnUSA.org. We will then deliver these personally-signed copies to the Supervisors.
California Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) has introduced a bill, AB 1142, to restrict smoking from California State Park beaches. This action would effectively reduce the amount of cigarette waste in California that could become litter in the ocean. This photo to the right shows an innocent sandpiper nibbling away at a discarded cigarette butt on the beach - a potentially harmful encounter.
The ocean is polluted with plastic waste, and cigarette butts are among the most toxic of all plastic items encountered by wildlife. They are made of plastic cellulose and packed with carcinogens adsorbed as a byproduct of burning tobacco.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. Californians have honored the leatherback sea turtle and must now take action to protect its critical habitat feeding area by supporting AB 1142.
Please share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts in California!
Not a California resident? Please click here to sign in support of the effort on our general petition to ban plastic bags, which will be delivered at strategic times to show nation-wide support.
The ocean is polluted by plastic waste from the growing use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use plastic bags, cups, straws, and most plastic items contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
California Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Santa Cruz) has introduced a bill, AB 521, to reduce plastic pollution by making producers of plastic products (particularly singe-use packaging) responsible for product design, recovery, collection, and recycling programs to prevent their item causing additional marine plastic pollution. This bill would create the Plastic Pollution Reduction Producer Responsibility Act, which would require California to adopt a statewide goal of reducing marine plastic pollution by 75% by 2020 and 95% by 2025. This action would effectively reduce the amount of plastic waste in California that could become litter in the ocean.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. At their current rate of decline, they could be extinct in 20 years. Scientists have determined over 35% of leatherback sea turtles contain ingested plastic. The Pacific leatherback is now California's official marine reptile and was granted over 16,000 square miles of protected critical habitat offshore for feeding on jellyfish.
Californians have honored the leatherback sea turtle and must now take action to protect its critical habitat feeding area by supporting AB 521. Please take action below and share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts in California!
Not a California resident? Please click here to sign in support of California's plastic bag ban general petition, which will be delivered at strategic times to show nation-wide support.
The colorful info-graphic to the right supporting AB 521 was created by supporters with the National Resource Defense Council to educate and activate folks around this campaign. Click the image to expand it, print it, and share it!
The ocean is polluted by plastic waste from the growing use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Disposable plastic fast-food service packaging, the plastic bags, cups, and trays, contain toxic chemicals. When plastic pollutes the ocean it can be ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
California Senator Marc Leno has introduced a bill, SB 529, to restrict fast food service companies from giving out single-use plastic bags, cups and trays. If passed, it would create the Plastic and Marine Pollution Reduction, Recycling, and Composting Act to require plastic waste better managed and raise funds to sponsor cleanup actions to reduce plastic waste reaching the ocean.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. At their current rate of decline, they could be extinct in 20 years. Scientists have determined over 35% of leatherback sea turtles contain ingested plastic. The Pacific leatherback is now California's official marine reptile and was granted over 16,000 square miles of protected critical habitat offshore for feeding on jellyfish.
Californians have honored the leatherback sea turtle and must now take action to protect its critical habitat feeding area by supporting SB 529. Please sign and share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts in California!
Not a California resident? Please click here to sign in support of the effort on our general petition, which will be delivered at strategic times to show nation-wide support.
The ocean is polluted by plastic waste from the growing use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use carryout plastic bags contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
California Senator Alex Padilla has introduced a bill, SB 405, to restrict stores from giving out single-use carryout bags, specifically plastic bags and bags not made of recycled content. This action would effectively reduce the amount of plastic waste in California that could become litter in the ocean.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. At their current rate of decline, they could be extinct in 20 years. Scientists have determined over 35% of leatherback sea turtles contain ingested plastic. The Pacific leatherback is now California's official marine reptile and was granted over 16,000 square miles of protected critical habitat offshore for feeding on jellyfish.
Californians have honored the leatherback sea turtle and must now take action to protect its critical habitat feeding area by supporting SB 405. Please sign and share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts in California!
Not a California resident? Please click here to sign in support of the effort on our general petition, which will be delivered at strategic times to show nation-wide support.
The continuing practice of shark finning, which is the inhumane practice of removing the fins and discarding the remainder of the shark back into the sea, is having a devastating effect on shark species around the world. Shark finning results tens of millions of sharks a year being killed for their fins alone. Over one-third of all oceanic shark species are threatened with extinction as a result of shark finning.
Apex predators such as sharks play a critical role in maintaining healthy, balanced ecosystems; something that is necessary for the long term survival of our own species.
Take action below to stop shark fin trade in Maryland!
Maryland resident? Click here to send a message directly to your Governor!Together with five other states that have already passed legislation to ban shark fin trade, Maryland residents can slow the global practice of shark finning and work to ensure the responsible conservation and management of sharks.
The ocean is polluted by plastic waste from the growing use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use carryout plastic bags contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
California Assemblyman Marc Levine has introduced a bill, AB 158, to restrict stores from giving out single-use carryout bags, specifically plastic bags and bags not made of recycled content. This action would effectively reduce the amount of plastic waste in California that could become litter in the ocean.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. At their current rate of decline, they could be extinct in 20 years. Scientists have determined over 35% of leatherback sea turtles contain ingested plastic. The Pacific leatherback is now California's official marine reptile and was granted over 16,000 square miles of protected critical habitat offshore for feeding on jellyfish.
Take action below, whether you live in California or not, to add your name to this critical effort. Please sign and share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts!
California resident?Click here to send a message directly to your Legislative Representative.
The ocean is polluted by plastic waste from the growing use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use carryout plastic bags contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
California Assemblyman Marc Levine has introduced a bill, AB 158, to restrict stores from giving out single-use carryout bags, specifically plastic bags and bags not made of recycled content. This action would effectively reduce the amount of plastic waste in California that could become litter in the ocean.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. At their current rate of decline, they could be extinct in 20 years. Scientists have determined over 35% of leatherback sea turtles contain ingested plastic. The Pacific leatherback is now California's official marine reptile and was granted over 16,000 square miles of protected critical habitat offshore for feeding on jellyfish.
Californians have honored the leatherback sea turtle and must now take action to protect its critical habitat feeding area by supporting AB 158. Please sign and share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts in California!
Not a California resident? Please click here to sign in support of the effort on our general petition, which will be delivered at strategic times to show nation-wide support.
Endangered loggerhead sea turtles migrate thousands of miles across the entire Pacific Ocean through deadly longlines and plastic pollution from their nesting grounds in Japan. They arrive along the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico to feed on the abundance of red crabs and can stay here for decades as they grow and mature. The red crabs also attract intense fishing and these loggerheads are confronted with invisible walls of death - thousands of gillnets stretched across Baja's coast.
Last summer a horrific 600% increase in dead sea turtles was observed in Gulf of Ulloa along Baja's Pacific coast, an area famous for its friendly gray whales and an important eco-tourism destination. A stunning 483 loggerheads washed up dead on 40 km of shoreline in just the month of July, and scientists estimate over 2,000 loggerheads were killed last year in gillnets alone off of Baja's coast.
The bycatch rate of loggerheads in Mexican gillnets is among the highest in the world — and it is jeopardizing their continued survival. This photo to the right of dead sea turtles was captured on-board a Baja gillnet vessel.
The President of Mexico must respond immediately to protect these sea turtles. Despite decades of cooperative conservation efforts by sea turtle and fisheries teams, the gillnet fleets continue unchecked. No fishery should be allowed to continue when it is killing this many endangered loggerhead sea turtles!
The continuing practice of shark finning, which is the inhumane practice of removing the fins and discarding the remainder of the shark back into the sea, is having a devastating effect on shark species around the world. Shark finning results in tens of millions of sharks a year being killed for their fins alone. Over one-third of all oceanic shark species are threatened with extinction as a result of shark finning.
Scientists estimate that 99% of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks and 90% of Silky Sharks are now gone from the Gulf of Mexico because sharks are being poached just for their fins from State waters and throughout the Gulf to supply the shark fin trade. Apex predators such as sharks play a critical role in maintaining healthy, balanced ecosystems - something that is necessary for the long term survival of our own species.
Take action below to stop shark fin trade in Texas!
The continuing practice of shark finning, which is the inhumane practice of removing the fins and discarding the remainder of the shark back into the sea, is having a devastating effect on shark species around the world. Shark finning results in tens of millions of sharks a year being killed for their fins alone. Over one-third of all oceanic shark species are threatened with extinction as a result of shark finning.
Scientists estimate that 99% of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks and 90% of Silky Sharks are now gone from the Gulf of Mexico because sharks are being poached just for their fins from State waters and throughout the Gulf to supply the shark fin trade. Apex predators such as sharks play a critical role in maintaining healthy, balanced ecosystems - something that is necessary for the long term survival of our own species.
Texas residents, take action below to stop shark fin trade in Texas! Together with six other states that have already passed legislation to ban shark fin trade, Texans can slow the global practice of shark finning and work to ensure the responsible conservation and management of sharks.
The ocean is polluted by plastic waste from the growing use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use carryout plastic bags contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
California Assemblyman Marc Levine has introduced a bill, AB 158, to restrict stores from giving out single-use carryout bags, specifically plastic bags and bags not made of recycled content. This action would effectively reduce the amount of plastic waste in California that could become litter in the ocean.
Pacific leatherback sea turtles are declining towards extinction and rely on clean, plastic-free feeding areas offshore of California for their continued survival. At their current rate of decline, they could be extinct in 20 years. Scientists have determined over 35% of leatherback sea turtles contain ingested plastic. The Pacific leatherback is now California's official marine reptile and was granted over 16,000 square miles of protected critical habitat offshore for feeding on jellyfish.
Californians have honored the leatherback sea turtle and must now take action to protect its critical habitat feeding area by supporting AB 158. Please sign and share this call to action with friends, family, and all your contacts in California!
Texans is big, and its environmental policies are felt across the state's hundreds of miles of coastline and across the Gulf of Mexico. Two bills working their way through the Texas Legislature, the Bottle Bills, would establish a program to increase plastic bottle recycling for cleaner waters, parks, highways, public lands and sea turtle nesting beaches! Both Senate Bill 645 and House Bill 1473 are "relating to water quality improvement and pollution reduction through beverage container recycling incentives."
Each year 17 billion beverage containers are sold in Texas and only 4 billion are recycled. California already has "Bottle Bill" legislation and reports that over 90% of beverage containers there are recycled! There is no better way to prevent plastic bottles from polluting valuable waterways and beaches than to enact a "Bottle Bill" and provide financial incentives to recycle.
Texas residents, use the form below to send a message directly to your represenatives.
Not a Texas resident? Click hereto add your name in support of the Texas Bottle Bills on our general petition.
The endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle relies on Texas beaches and offshore feeding habitat for its survival. Its story over the last four decades is one of deadly hardship and hopeful recovery. Together with Carole Allen, our Gulf of Mexico Director, students in Texas have successfully introduced a bill to create a law to name the Kemp's ridley the official State Sea Turtle of Texas!
This emblematic species represents past triumphs and the need for continued diligence in our conservation work. Kemp's ridleys have survived catastrophic oil spills and assault from shrimp trawlers that brought them to the brink of extinction. Thanks to conservation efforts in Texas and Mexico, these endangered sea turtles are now on a road to recovery.
Take action below and sign our general petition to be used at strategic times to show the nation-wide support of Texas' Kemp's ridley sea turtles!
The endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle relies on Texas beaches and offshore feeding habitat for its survival. Its story over the last four decades is one of deadly hardship and hopeful recovery. Together with Carole Allen, our Gulf of Mexico Director, students in Texas have successfully introduced a bill to create a law to name the Kemp's ridley the official State Sea Turtle of Texas!
This emblematic species represents past triumphs and the need for continued diligence in our conservation work. Kemp's ridleys have survived catastrophic oil spills and assault from shrimp trawlers that brought them to the brink of extinction. Thanks to conservation efforts in Texas and Mexico, these endangered sea turtles are now on a road to recovery.
Texas voting residents can take action below to send their local Legislators a message supporting this historic effort. Send this message as often as you can!
Not a Texas resident? Click here to sign our general petition to be used at strategic times to show the nation-wide support of Texas' Kemp's ridley sea turtles!
As the disasters at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have shown, nuclear power can cause catastrophic damage to land, human health, and our food supply. The nuclear reactors that exploded at Fukushima in March 2011 and released toxic radiation across our planet were designed and manufactured by General Electric. There are still 23 nearly-identical GE Mark I reactors operating in the U.S. and 8 more very similar GE Mark II reactors. All suffer from fundamental design flaws, posing a great risk to the safety and integrity of our environment. There is no reason to rely on nuclear energy when clean, renewable energy sources are available.
The generation of nuclear Power also causes direct harm to sea turtles and many other marine species. The once-through cooling systems of nuclear reactors are vacuuming up trillions of newly hatched fish, turtles, and other marine life and destroying them in their heat exchangers. Four species of endangered and one threatened species of sea turtle present in U.S. coastal waters are harmed and killed by nuclear power station operations. The turtles are sucked into the large-diameter coolant intake pipes and become trapped and are unable to escape, resulting in suffocation and drowning.
Rising sea levels are just another threat making nuclear plants unsafe for future use. The close proximity of plants to oceans intensifies the potential threats to ocean life as a result from nuclear power generation. Those threats are growing, as current reactors become older, more and more nuclear “waste” is stored on-site, and global climate change raises sea levels and increases the magnitude and severity of hurricanes and cyclones.
We encourage you to send a letter to the NRC below in support of shutting down all of the currently operating reactors. We need to end our reliance on nuclear power and shut down all the nuclear plants that are still operating in order to protect our delicate marine environment.
Support Increased Protection for Sharks and Rays Under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).
This March, member countries to CITES will vote on whether 11 species of sharks and rays will receive protections from the devastating effects of international trade.
CITES is the world’s largest international wildlife conservation agreement and can implement trade restrictions on shark fins and other body parts.
Please sign this letter now to CITES leaders and urge them to vote YES to protect species on the brink of extinction including three hammerhead species (Scalloped, Great and Smooth), as well as oceanic whitetip sharks, porbeagle sharks, manta rays, mobulid rays, sawfish, and other elasmobranchs.
The north shore of Oahu, where the Turtle Bay Resort is situated, is known by locals as "The Country" because it is the only part of the island not yet inundated by massive tourist developments. The proposed expansion of Turtle Bay Resort, the biggest private hotel and condo complex in the area, will have devastating impacts for generations to come.
Hawaiian green sea turtles and Hawaiian monk seals can be seen daily in and around the resort - these beaches and reefs have been their home for thousands of years. Rare endemic Hawaiian birds enjoy sanctuary in the protected wetland critical habitat in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge adjacent to the Resort.
Turtle Bay Resort is demanding hundreds more condos, hotel rooms, boutique shops and the concrete infrastructure to support thousands of new visitors for their golf courses, helicopter rides, and beachside restaurants. The construction will displace wildlife and their fragile habitats and forever destroy the existing habitat buffer zones in place to protect wildlife from their current footprint.
Take action today and demand the Turtle Bay Resort halt expansion beyond their current footprint to save Hawaiian green sea turtles, Hawaiian monk seals and endemic Hawaiian waterbirds.
The California drift gillnet fishery for swordfish and shark continues to capture and kill dolphins and sea lions, and to toss back, dead and damaged, 20 to 30 percent of its catch of fish. The capture and deaths of two endangered sperm whales were observed in the drift gillnet fishery in 2010, equal to an estimated total of 16 whales caught and injured or killed in the fishery.
Because the drift gillnet fishery is so deadlly to marine life of all kinds, it has been severely restricted. Yet federal fishery officials in defiance of longstanding California state policy and conservation laws are trying to expand this unsustainable fishery again!
Take Action! Tell National Marine Fisheries Service and the Pacific Fisheries Management Council to halt any further action to expand the California drift gillnet fishery for swordfish and shark off the U.S. West Coast.
Thank you to the thousands of supporters who added their names in support before for the March 1, 2013 comment deadline! Please sign below to add your name to our campaign database and be informed of the next critical action to protect marine biodiversity.
California's National Marine Sanctuaries preserve one of the world's most productive marine ecosystems from the devastating impacts of the oil and gas industry. The Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary boundaries are now up for review, and your help is needed today to support this historic chance to expand their reaches northward and safeguard offshore habitats for future generations.
If approved, the currently proposed expansion would increase the area of these sanctuaries over 150%! Leatherback sea turtles, blue whales, seals, sea lions and seabirds all rely on this area for their survival.
Take action now to expand California's National Marine Sanctuaries before the March 1, 2013 comment deadline!
Use the link below this petition to submit your own personal comment letter through the Federal eRulemaking Portal.
Take Action by signing this petition to the Cayman Turtle Farm.
A recent investigation by animal rights defenders has revealed that sea turtles are living with open wounds in waste-filled waters at the Cayman Turtle Farm in the Caribbean, a popular tourist destination. The findings provided clear evidence of a range of different welfare related issues including but not restricted to: (1) overcrowding; (2) unsuitable captive conditions; (3) disease; (4) cannibalism; and (5) unnecessary prolonged suffering.
Sadly, in August 2012, Wildlife Extra News reported that after a leak of seawater from a pipe, 300 Green turtles died at the turtle farm on the Cayman Islands.
In response, Sea Turtle Restoration Project is joining the international campaign to call for an end to turtle farming for consumption and a reform of the operations as a turtle rehabilitation and education center. Help us support the efforts of the World Society for the Protection of Animals to ends turtle farming in the Cayman Islands. Sign the petition below. We'll add your names to the thousands of signatures that will be delivered to Managing Director Timothy Adam at the Cayman Turtle Farm in late January 2013.
(Photo of green sea turtle in Hawaii by Anita Wintner.)
Denounce the U.S. decision to allow hooking of more endangered sea turtles in Hawaii's swordfish fishery Tell President Obama and NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco to reverse their decision to allow more endangered leatherbacks and loggerheads to be capturedon deadly longline hooks in the Hawaii swordfish fishery. Sign the petition below or better yet, write a hand-written letter by snail mail and copy your Congressional representatives.
Using an unfounded and dangerous argument that hooking more sea turtles in Hawaii's swordfish fleet somehow saves sea turtles elsewhere in the Pacific, the U. S. government has issued new fishing regulations that took effect in November 2012 that doubles the number of sea turtles that the longliners can hook in their pursuit of swordfish.
Leatherback captures - increased from 16 to 20 per year.
Loggerhead captures - increased from 17 to 34 per year.
Nor only does this fishery injure and kill endangered sea turltes, but these hooks also injure and drown false kills whales, humpback whales, sea lions, seals, monk seals, shark, wrays and any marine animal that swims by. We don't need more swordfish. Fewer people are eating swordfish than ever before because it is too expensive and it is laden with mercury. Women and children are warned by the U.S. FDA to never eat swordfish! So if half the population can't eat it, why do they keep pushing for more? Putting profits before people and the oceans is outlandish and irresponsible.
While the tide is turning in favor of protecting sea turtles and songllines from a massive petroleum plant along the Kimberley coast in Australia, the battle is far from over. Every day activists on the front lines are taking actions to protect their homes and country.
Just last week, the Western Australian government decided to give final environmental approval to the project over the objections of more than 240 official appeals, including one lodged by SeaTurtles.org about harm to vulnerable sea turtle species. (Read more here).
Now it is up to Australia's federal Environment Minister Tony Burke to stop the gas madness and halt the project once and for all.
Please take action below to write Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke.
Photo of climbers hanging banners on towering dirilling rigs locked inside the Woodside Petroleum equipment compound along the Manari Road that goes to Walmadan (James Price Point) by Damian Kelly.
Once you've voted, register below and you will be automatically entered into a drawing for a special SeaTurtles.org prize package. The raffle will take place just before Thanksgiving and the winner will get: A SeaTurtles.org T-shirt and Window Decal plus a pewter Sea Turtle Keychain.
NEW CONTEST Step 3: Tell your Friends - as many as you can! The person who tells the greatest number of friends will receive the amazing hardback Sea Turtle book by James Spotila, which is a complete guide to behavior, biology, and conservation of sea turtles with amazing color photographs.
We are honored that The Body Shop has selected SeaTurtles.Org as a grant recipient - and that you have voted to help us get the largest grant for protecting sea turtles! The Body Shop’s entire profit from the purchase of Dragon Fruit Lip Butter is dedicated to support grant awards. The charity with the most VOTES will receive the largest grant.
Add your name to the letter of support below to demand the National Marine Fisheries Service list the North East Pacific Population of Great White Sharks under the Endangered Species Act before they dissapear forever.
Thank you to everyone who took action before this year's California Legislative session closed August 30, 2012. Unfortunately, the Legislature failed to act to pass these critical bills, so we will re-engage them next year to continue our fight to reduce disposable plastic use in California. You can still use the action below to remind your representatives this is an important issue to you!
Support a future of clean seas in California for endangered leatherback sea turtles! Two bills advancing in the Legislature would lead to a phasing out of single-use plastic bags in grocery stores (AB-298) and polystyrene foam take-out containers in restaurants (SB-568). Plastic bags and plastic foam pieces are two of the most common litter items found on California’s beaches along the new leatherback critical habitat.
Email and Call Your Representatives Today!
Send the e-letter below to your legislative representatives stating that you support these bills and what they mean for the people and environment of California. Then, make a personal phone call using the contact information generated below to your Senator, Assemblymember, and the Governor!
Click here to access more details on AB-298. Click here for a copy of SB-568. Please share this Action Alert with friends and family!
Each year, tens of millions of sharks are killed by overfishing to supply the shark fin trade.
Among these, millions of hammerhead sharks are killed each year through the cruel and wasteful practice of shark finning. Shark finning is the act of removing shark fins and discarding the living shark overboard to drown or bleed to death. Especially coveted for their fins to make shark fin soup, hammerhead populations are literally getting hammered.
Already threatened by longlines and overfishing, a hunger for fins is driving shark species to the brink of extinction. Hammerhead sharks and other species of sharks and rays need international protection immediately.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) analyses, all shark species proposed at the 2010 meeting met the criteria for listing under CITES Appendix II, yet the proposals were all shot down by nations with interests in the shark trade. Restrictions on international trade are in place for only three shark species - the whale shark, great white shark and basking shark, yet hammerhead sharks and several other species need this protection. This listing requires that trade is controlled including shark fins, in order to avoid use that threatens the species' survival.
To Save These Sharks We Must Protect Them Now.
We need your voice to urge the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list endangered hammerhead Sharks under Appendix II at the next Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species at C0P 16, Bangkok in March, 2013.
Please use the form below to send a direct letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service and tell them that you support regulations protecting hammerhead sharks.
Thanks to you and thousands of sea turtle lovers and dozens of conservation groups, the Pacific leatherback is NOW the offiicial sea turtle of California!
The leatherback bill sponsored by SeaTurtles.org - AB 1776 - and authored by Assemblyman Paul Fong passed through the state Senate on unanimous bi-partisan votes.
Photo of leatherback feeding copyright Peter Winch/Oceanic Society
Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill on September 26, 2012. Thank you Governor Brown for continuing California's legacy of ocean protection!
This historic legislation makes the endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle the official marine reptile of California and declares October 15 as Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtle Conservation Day.
Thanks Governor Brown for signing AB 1776 by taking action today!
1. Sign our petition to the governor below.
2. For the greatest impact, send a personalized letter to the governor. Use the petition letter below to get started! Add your personal thoughts with an email to the the governor here or send a letter to the following address:
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna are threatened with extinction from overfishing. Now the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service is considering changes in fishing policy, yet not all changes may benefit this population of enigmatic predators.
Bluefin tuna are the fastest swimming tuna, migrate thousands of miles and can grow over 1000 pounds. Bluefin tuna are the most coveted fish for sushi, and the increased demand is putting a bounty even on immature tuna in the Gulf of Mexico and Western Atlantic Coastline. Bluefin and other target fish are caught primarily using surface longlines off Gulf waters. Bluefin face serious threats because the Gulf of Mexico is the only known spawning area for this remarkable fish.
Surface longlines consist of thousands of baited hooks suspended from lines that stretch an average of 30 miles. Although tuna and swordfish are the desired catch, these longlines also catch and kills tons of untargeted animals as Bykill. These include endangered sea turtles, sharks and marine mammals including the severely depleted Western Atlantic bluefin tuna. Although regulations have provided partial relief for some marine wildlife, surface longlines in the Gulf continue to incidentally catch and kill significant numbers of undersized, unwanted, and protected species.
Just modifying surface longlines won’t reverse this disturbing trend. Better fishing restrictions and gear changes are desperately needed to prevent extinction of our sensitive marine willdife as well as valuable commercial species.
Help us ACT NOW and tell NOAA to increase protections for Bluefin tuna and other sensitive marine wildlife in the Gulf.
U.S. Senators Can Stop Louisiana's Rogue Actions to Block New Sea Turtle Protections
In May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a deadly anti-sea turtle rider in a key appropriations bill that will prevent the funding of new sea turtle protections that require Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) in all shrimp nets. The new rules will prevent about 28,000 sea turtles per year from capture in shrimp nets used by Louisiana's shallow water skimmer trawl fleet.
We must stop the House rider introduced by Louisiana Republican Rep. Jeffrey Landry from being added to the Senate verison of the federal bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice and Science.
Please call or email your U.S. Senator now and tell them not to support the Landry rider and to block it from being added to the Senate version of the legislation.
Around the world every day, industrial fishing takes seafood out of the ocean for restaurants, grocery stores, and our dinner tables.
These fisheries use billions of hooks and thousands of miles of nets in the ocean to catch wild fish, but they also catch innocent sea turtles, whales, dolphins and other marine wildlife every day. Swordfish and tuna caught with longlines and drift gillnets kill thousands of sea turtles and sharks by accident each year.
Even worse, now eco-labels are being granted to some of the most high bycatch fisheries around in the name of seafood profits. The Marine Stewardship Council is labeling every fishery in sight as sustainable so that Whole Foods, Wal Mart and other giant chain stores can bluewash their seafood counters and make millions in profits.
If you care about healthy ocean life, please take the pledge below to stop eating seafood that is not Sea Turtle or Ocean-Safe! And promise not to eat or purchase swordfish, tuna or shrimp that is certified with an eco-label as sustainable. It's just not so, no matter what the seafood lobbyists tell you!
Enough is Enough - Stop the California Drift Gillnet Expansion and End the Curtain of Death
The California drift gillnet fishery for swordfish and shark continues to capture and kill dolphins and sea lions, and to toss back, dead and damaged, 20 to 30 percent of its catch of fish. The capture and deaths of two endangered sperm whales were observed in the drift gillnet fishery in 2010, equal to an estimated total of 16 whales caught and injured or killed in the fishery.
Because the drift gillnet fishery is so deadlly to marine life of all kinds, it has been severely restricted. The use of longline gear to catch swordfish along our coast has been completely banned due to bykill of sea turtles. Yet federal fishery officials in defiance of longstanding California state policy and conservation laws are trying to expand this unsustainable fishery again!
Take Action! Tell National Marine Fisheries Service and the Pacific Fisheries Management Council to halt any further action to expand the California drift gillnet fishery for swordfish and shark or to introduce a pelagic longline fishery for swordfish and sharks off the U.S. West Coast.
In Marin County, we depend on the rich diversity of tree species that are native to our region. These trees support our strong heritage of environmental stewardship, support the native biodiversity we enjoy as naturalists, and are critical to the survial of endangered coho salmon.
A proposed ordinance, the Native Tree Protection and Preservation Ordinance, is being considered by the Marin County Board of Supervisors next week, and it does not go far enough to protect native trees that are essential to the continued health of endangered coho salmon and our entire community.
Send the message below to the Board of Supervisors, and then share this alert with friends and family who care about native trees in Marin. Click here to for more information about the Board of Supervisors members.
With climate change beginning to take its toll on sea turtle nesting beaches and food supplies, destroying habitat and generating new global warming gases would seem to be a counter-productive response. However, Chevron and Big Oil continue to push for drilling for oil and natural gas projects to produce more fossil fuel for burning – and increasing carbon dioxide emissions while extracting and exploiting resources along the way.
While the fossil fuel frenzy is occurring around the globe, one of the most blatant conflicts between Big Oil, global warming and sea turtles is in remote Kimberley region in Northwestern Australia. Here Chevron and Shell among other international corporations are running roughshod over western and indigenous communities, government and the environment to push through projects that will not only destroy sea turtle nesting habitat and pollute waters that are critical to calving whales, but generate tens of millions of tons per year or more of new carbon dioxide emissions every year. Read the latest news about Chevron running roughshod over Australian Aboriginal communities.
Chevron is building its giant Gorgon natural gas facility on the Barrow Island Nature Reserve, destroying nesting beaches for the "forgotten" Australian flatback sea turtles. Unlike the other six species of sea turtles, so little research has been done on these mysterious sea turtles that their international status as a species is described as "data deficient". The Western Australian government's environmental experts oppose the Gorgon project on Barrolw Island and stated earlier this year that: Put simply, the proposal as presented does not provide a reasonable prospect for the long term viability of this valuable turtle rookery. Read more about the Gorgon Project.
It is not too late for Chevron to put the brakes on these projects and prevent the environmental, human and economic disasters that it has created at its refineries in California, the jungle of Ecuador, the forests of Nigeria, and other locations around the world. Read more about the True Cost of Chevron.
Download our report about sea turtles and climate change at this website: Boiling Point.
Around the world every day, industrial fishing takes seafood out of the ocean for restaurants, grocery stores, and our dinner tables.
These fisheries use billions of hooks and thousands of miles of nets in the ocean to catch safood, but they also catch innocent sea turtles like Fillmore.
On the high seas beyond the borders of any country, illegal fishing takes place with nobody around to stop it.
Three types of seafooed that are especially harmful to sea turtles are swordfish, tuna, and shrimp! The swordfish and tuna are caught with longlines that also kill hundreds of sea turtles,and thousands of sharks by accident each year. Shrimp are caught in nets that trap sea turtles, unless those nets have an escape hatch for sea turtles called a Turtle Excluder Device.
Fillmore and the entire Sherman's Lagoon gang cares about healthy ocean life, and wants you to take the pledge below to stop eating seafood that is not Sea Turtle-Safe!
Drakes Estero is a unique and remote estuary within the Point Reyes National Seashore in California that is home to protected species of birds, fishes and marine mammals. It drains into Drakes Bay, a sanctuary for endangered leatherback sea turtles that migrate across the entire Pacific Ocean to reach abundant jellyfish blooms. However, plans approved by Congress to expand marine wilderness protections throughout this sensitive habitat are uncertain.
Your Support Needed for Finalizing Wilderness Transformation
The Point Reyes Wilderness Act passed in 1976 laid plans to complete a full transformation of Drakes Estero into pristine marine wilderness during 2012. Only a small portion of the sensitive wetlands is currently protected. With strong public support, the promises made to preserve the entire expanse of wetlands over thirty years ago will be realized.
A Sanctuary for Sea Turtles and Marine Mammals
Drakes Bay is part of the Leatherback Conservation Area created through tireless advocacy by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and is proposed as critical habitat for endangered leatherback sea turtles. Expanding marine wilderness habitat protections throughout the Drakes Estero will benefit biodiversity of the interconnected estuarine and marine ecosystems.
Sign the petition below in support of finalizing Wilderness Act protections for the entire Drakes Estero within the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Thank you to the thousands of supporters who took action and shared this alert before the October 17, 2011 deadline!
For a fact sheet on false killer whales, click here. To read a previous press release on the status of the Hawaiian false killer whale, click here.
You can still sign the petition below to be added to our list of supporters for increasing false killer whale protections.
Thanks to years of focused actions by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and partner organizations, new protections have been proposed to protect the imperiled false killer whales that inhabit the Hawaiian Islands. This local population of beautiful and intelligent mammals has plummeted to an estimated 123 individuals. Longline fishermen are their biggest threat, and with your support, these longlines could be banned from 177,000 square miles of ocean.
New Plan Expands Closed Areas for Longlines
At their current rate of decline, the Hawaiian false killer whales are in danger of extinction throughout their range. To slow their decline, a new Take Reduction Plan has proposed new areas closed to longline tuna fishing and requires “weak circle hooks” that bend to release the large marine mammals. We supportimmediate implementation of these actions with additional longline closures to the north of the main Hawaiian Islands and further studies to prove the effectiveness of the weak hooks.
Deaths from All Deadly Fisheries Must Be Counted
False killer whales are caught and killed on Hawaiian tuna longlines, swordfish longlines, and many other fisheries, but the current Plan only accounts for one, the tuna fishery. All deaths in all fisheries must be accounted for and used to trigger increased protections in the final Take Reduction Plan.
Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal is responsible for allowing the drowning of thousands of sea turtles in shrimp trawl nets. He had a chance to repeal the state law banning enforcement of Turtle Excluder Devices but vetoed the bill that would have resulted in a more sustainable future for shrimp trawling.
Send the message below to Governor Jindal demanding he repeal the outdated and cruel law that stands in the way of ensuring a healthy recovery of endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.
Over eighty expert scientists have joined the Sea Turtle Restoration Project in calling for a repeal of the cruel law that is based on old science and poor politics. Click here to read our press release and the scientists' letter, and click here to read the Associated Press' news coverage of the campaign.
Thank you to the thousands of supporters who joined us in calling for a halt to the sea turtle killings by the Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl fishery before the August 23 deadline! You can still sign-on below to be added to our list of sea turtle supporters.
The Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl fishery has been the leading killer of endangered sea turtles in the U.S. since the 1980s, drowning thousands of innocent sea turtles each year. Take action today to demand an immediate overhaul of this fishery to increase sea turtle protections!
Give Sea Turtles a Break from Trawling
The shrimp fishery must give sea turtles a break and temporarily stop trawling when sea turtles are abundant during nesting season. Most states close the shrimp trawl fishery for one to two months each year, but shrimping beyond state lines never stops!
Require TEDs on All Trawls - Close the Deadly Loophole
If endangered sea turtles are to recover in the Gulf, all trawls must have TEDs.
Skimmer trawls are not required to use TEDs in their nets. Once uncommon, they currently outnumber other trawls by three to one in Louisiana, where shrimpers deliberately exploit this deadly loophole.
Shrimpers Rig Nets to Kill Sea Turtles
Enforcement of TEDs laws have become so lax in recent years that shrimpers were recently caught sewing the sea turtle escape hatch shut or failing to install a TED at all. Click here to access all the details.
Take action before August 23 to shape the future of the Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl fishery.
URGENT!Click here for the new action alert demanding Congress stop proposed budget cuts to the Padre Island National Seashore's efforts to protect sea turtles by lowering speed limits on nesting beaches.
Thousands of letters were sent to the National Park Service supporting sea turtles before the July 25th deadline. Thank you for taking action! Add your name below and help this movement grow!
The National Park Service has proposed a speed limit reduction from 25 mph to 15 mph on Texas sea turtle nesting beaches, a move we support that can save the lives of adult and hatchling sea turtles. Extensive research and public opinion surveys found that vehicles on Texas park beaches should not exceed 15 mph in summer for the safety of sea turtles.
Speeding vehicles are one of the many deadly threats faced by endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. Drivers of vehicles have a tough time seeing nesting sea turtles and an even tougher time spotting baby hatchlings on the beaches.
Summer Speeding Can Kill Nesting Sea Turtles
The highest density of nesting Kemp’s ridley sea turtles in the U.S. is at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. The summer months are when nesting females arrive at beaches and when baby hatchlings emerge and scuttle to the ocean. The needs for increased vehicle safety and decreased beach speed limits are greatest during the summer when the beaches are croweded with thousands of tourists. Click here to download the entire Environmental Assessment.
Take action below before July 25 to send a letter of support to reduce the speed limit of vehicles on beaches during sea turtle nesting season!
California residents can make a huge impact to save the lives of millions of sharks around the world if Governor Brown signs AB 376, a ban on the possession and sale of shark fins, into law this month. We helped push AB 376 through a final Senate vote, and now only the Governor can finish what we started.
Shark fin soup is a luxury food, not a necessity, and California is home to more restaurants that serve it than almost any other state in the U.S. Sharks are brutally slaughtered every year on longlines, in gill nets, and in all fishing gear to support the billion-dollar shark fin market, much of which is illegal. We have taken action in Sacramento and will continue to fight to protect sharks from the cruel practice of finning.
Please enter your zip code below and take action now by sending your message, then call Governor Brown to magnify your impact. Share this action alert on your social networks and urge all your friends to tell Governor Brown to sign AB 376 into law!
The pristine waters of Cocos Island, Costa Rica are home to the critically endangered eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtles and a rich diversity of marine life, all of which are threatened by continued longline fishing near this National Park. We need your help to call on President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica to provide the greatest possible protections for sea turtles and marine wildlife throughout the Cocos Ridge region.
Longlines Plague Cocos Island's Marine Ecosystem
The area is one of the very few places on earth where ocean life still thrives as it once did everywhere on the planet, yet tens of thousands of endangered sea turtles and sharks are being hooked and killed there every year.
Currently, even though fishing is outlawed in the 12 nautical miles of ocean surrounding Cocos Island National Park, longliners are still seen poaching sea life there. Just outside of the official no-fishing zone, industrial longliners scour the ocean for mahi-mahi to catch and sharks to fin. Longliners set fishing lines that are miles long, with thousands upon thousands of hooks that snag whatever’s in the way, including sea turtles.
Help Create an International Marine Protected Area Between Cocos and Galapagos
STRP is calling for the creation of a much larger, international marine protected area with Ecuador that connects Cocos with the Galapagos Islands. This swath of ocean is a key "swimway" for sea turtles and a vast profusion of marine life.
Sign the petition below to President Chinchilla asking for a comprehensive and effective plan to save the Cocos Island region and its endangered sea turtles!
Australia's flatback sea turtles need our help to stop BIg Oil from ruining the Kimberley coast of Northwest Australia. This remote red rock country is wild and sacred to traditional owners. Sea turtles swim the coast for hundreds of miles from nesting beaches to feeding areas. Satellite tracking of nesting flatbacks has confirmed this expanse of coastal ocean as a pristine marine highway. See turtle pathway diagram here.
Photo of flatback returning to the sea at EcoBeach in the Kimberley south of Broome by Dave and Fiona Harvey.
Along with the ancient sea turtles, the Kimberley is home to the world's largest population of humpback whales and vast areas of diverse corals. The highly endangered Australian snubfin dolphin, rare dugongs and numerous fish species migrate along the same seaway.
But despite the BP oil spill and Australia's own oil disaster off the Kimberley coast in 2009, multinational fossil fuel companies are eyeing the Kimberley coast for a massive new liquid natural gas processing facility. BP is partnering with Chevron, Shell, Woodside Petroleum and BHP Billiton on this project.
Click here to learn more about the widely opposed natural gas project at James Price Point near Broome in the Kimberley.
Click here to read more about the Australian flatback sea turtle and actions we are taking to protect them.
As of October 13, 2011, more than 1,400 sea turtles have washed up on beaches this year in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic where industrial shrimping trawls are rampant. On average, pre BP oil spill, this area of the Gulf of Mexico sees less than 150 dead sea turtle strandings in a year.
The Gulf shrimp trawl fishery is the leading killer of Kemp's ridley sea turtles in the U.S., who face grave dangers across the Gulf of Mexico from the commerical shrimp trawl fleet, which never closes in federal waters that lie beyond state lines. Increased enforcement of sea turtle protections are needed now!
"Gulf shrimp trawling continues to be a brutal, relentless killer of endangered sea turtles - there's simply no other way to put it," said Todd Steiner, executive director of Seaturtles.org in the Washington Post on October 13, 2011. "For generations, industrial shrimping has been the leading cause of sea turtle death - an atrocity that is completely unnecessary, if shrimpers used the low-cost technology that has existed for over two decades."
BP oil and recent offshore oil spills still contaminate the Gulf. Chronic exposure to oil could weaken sea turtles, poisoning them slowly. The increased fishing pressure, even with required Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) on most shrimp trawls, could kill poisoned animals that would normally struggle to safety.
Send the Letter Below to Save Gulf Sea Turtles
Send the message below now, and add your own personal feelings. The photo of the dead Kemp's ridley to the right was shared by concerned Mississippi local Shirley Tillman.
THANK YOU - NEARLY 3,000 PEOPLE SENT A MESSAGE TO AUSTRALIA TO STOP SHELL FROM DRILLING NEXT TO NINGALOO REEF! This was our biggest action of the year - amazing since the turn-around time was only a few days! Your voices will make a difference. We promise to let you know when a decision is made - and we are confident that this project will be stopped!
Ningaloo in Western Australia is one of the longest fringing reefs on the planet and a diver's dream. Six of the world's seven marine turtle species, all of which are listed as vulnerable or endangered, live in the vicinity. It is home to hundreds of species of coral and fish, including sharks, dolphins, manta rays and humpback whales. Every autumn whale sharks congregate in the area to feed. I have snorkeled at this reef and walked along its beaches and hiked up red rock canyons above the ocean.
Now petroleum giant Royal Dutch Shell is pushing to drill for oil and gas along the edge of this spectacular reef, which could jeopardize efforts to have the area listed on the World Heritage register. Shell's CEO admits that the company cannot guarantee the oil and gas operations would not harm the reef or marine life. Read more.
Photo of sea turtle at Ningaloo Reef; below diver and whale shark at Ningaloo.
Please help stop Shell in its tracks by sending a letter of opposition to the Australian government by Sunday, March 20, (U.S.) which is Monday, March 21 in Australia.Thank you for taking action on such short notice! Take action below!
THANK YOU - WE DELIVERED MORE THAN 2,300 MESSAGES OF OPPOSITION TO THE KIMBERLEY GAS HUB BY THE MARCH 28 DEADLINE!
Your voice is being heard in Australia and around the world - No Gas Hub in the Kimberley! In addition to your messages, we submitted an ocean conservation coalition letter from several key groups, the Kimberley Statement of Global Concern with more than 1,200 signatures and a comprehensive 30-page letter explaing why sea turtles and the environment were at risk of great harm from the proposed natural gas refinery. Read more here.
COMMENT PERIOD CLOSED.
Please help us support the Australians on the front lines of this battle and bombard Premier Barnett and his environmental authority with letters and emails opposing the gas hub at James Price Point in the Kimberley.
Photo: A flatback returns to the sea at EcoBeach in the Kimberley.
The new deadline is March 28 to send a message to Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett and the Environmental Protection Authority to reject the flawed environmental claims that benefit only oil companies.
Click here to learn more about the widely opposed natural gas project at James Price Point near Broome in the Kimberley.
Click here to read more about the Australian flatback sea turtle and actions we are taking to protect them.
March 31, 2011 Deadline for Public Comment on Environmental Review of Offshore OIl and Gas
Offshore oil and gas operations must be completely re-vamped and strong protections for sea turtles mandated in new oil and gas lease regulations in the aftermath of the BP oil spill. Sea Turtle Restoration Project recently testified at a public hearing before federal regulators to demand that sea turtles are given priority in oil spill prevention, response and recovery plans for oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
Please take action by sending a message to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement to put sea turtles first in the 2012 to 2017 Oil and Gas Leasing Program. See letter below.
Australia's flatback sea turtles need our help to stop BIg Oil from ruining the Kimberley coast of Northwest Australia. This remote red rock country is wild and sacred to traditional owners. Sea turtles swim the coast for hundreds of miles from nesting beaches to feeding areas. Satellite tracking of nesting flatbacks has confirmed this expanse of coastal ocean as a pristine marine highway. See turtle pathway diagram here.
Photo of flatback returning to the sea at EcoBeach in the Kimberley south of Broome by Dave and Fiona Harvey.
Along with the ancient sea turtles, the Kimberley is home to the world's largest population of humpback whales and vast areas of diverse corals. The highly endangered Australian snubfin dolphin, rare dugongs and numerous fish species migrate along the same seaway.
But despite the BP oil spill and Australia's own oil disaster off the Kimberley coast in 2009, multinational fossil fuel companies are eyeing the Kimberley coast for a massive new liquid natural gas processing facility. BP is partnering with Chevron, Shell, Woodside Petroleum and BHP Billiton on this project.
Click here to learn more about the widely opposed natural gas project at James Price Point near Broome in the Kimberley.
Click here to read more about the Australian flatback sea turtle and actions we are taking to protect them.
Thank you to all who helped us send thousands of comments in by the February 12th deadline! Please add your name to our list of supporters for this issue by completing the action below.
The Gulf of Mexico longline fishery kills both endangered sea turtles and imperiled bluefin tuna in their high seas migratory and spawning areas. To reduce unsustainable bycatch of bluefin critical to the Atlantic populations’ continued existence, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed switching to experimental “weak hooks” that should bend and release the largest bycatch. This unproven fishing gear is a weak solution to a serious problem.
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Like Sea Turtles, May Soon Be Endangered
Just last month NMFS advised adding Atlantic bluefin tuna to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Their only spawning ground is polluted with BP oil, their population is relentlessly attacked by commercial fisheries, and the latest NMFS solution is “weak hooks.” A strong solution is needed to ensure the survival of these beautiful fish and the injured ecosystem they depend on, and that strong solution is the closure of the deadly longline fishing fleet.
Gulf Longlines Kill Sea Turtles, Threaten Many Fisheries
The Sea Turtle Restoration Project is engaged in an ongoing battle to end longline fishing in the Gulf, home to four species of endangered sea turtles. Gulf longline fishing kills hundreds of sea turtles each year and continues harming populations of bluefin tuna and sturgeon at a time when all Gulf marine life is in recovery from the BP oil spill.
PHOTOS: (top) Bluefin tuna, credit NOAA. (bottom) A loggerhead sea turtle hooked and killed on a longline boat fishing for swordfish, credit Mar Mas/Oceana.
The president’s expert commission released its final report this week calling for systematic reform to overhaul offshore oil drilling safety and environmental regulations, but they overlooked protective measures for sea turtles. During the BP spill, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and allies forced BP to halt burning endangered sea turtles alive and forced independent wildlife observers trained in sea turtle rescue to be on all cleanup vessels.
Will Sea Turtles Be Burned Alive in the Next Oil Spill?
Unless Congress and President Obama take action to improve offshore oil regulations, we will re-live the tragedy of the BP spill and the horrific consequences of outright neglect of innocent marine life. Without strong public pressure, oil barons in Washington DC will continue their destructive and irresponsible actions.
A Sea Turtle Response and Rescue Plan Is Needed
The BP oil spill led to hundreds of endangered sea turtle deaths, but many more likely perished in the first weeks before any on-water rescue began. By August, rescue crews recovered more sea turtles in one week than they had found in two months! The lessons learned during the BP spill must be part of a permanent Sea Turtle Response and Rescue Plan for oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. We’re calling for action to achieve
Improved Oil Spill Response:
• Independent observers on all oil spill response vessels to record wildlife sightings;
• Sea turtle rescuers on all cleanup vessel teams;
• Establishment of a volunteer protocol for wildlife rescue assistance;
• Maintaining of an effective level of search effort for sea turtles and wildlife;
• Endangered species prioritized for rescue and rehabilitation;
• Chemical dispersants and “controlled burns” banned where endangered species are present.
Improved Oil Spill Restoration:
• Funds set aside specifically for restoration of sea turtle nesting beaches and nearshore habitat;
• Full cleanup of nesting beaches, oil free to a depth of 30 inches.
Improved Sea Turtle Protection from Oil and Gas:
• Avoidance of sea turtle breeding, foraging and migration habitat for any new or renewed oil drilling platforms;
• Establishment of protected swimways through the Gulf of Mexico where new oil and gas development is prohibited and existing operations phased out
Thank you to all who helped us send thousands of comments in by the February 15th deadline! Please add your name to our list of supporters for this issue by completing the action below.
The population of beautiful and intelligent false killer whales in Hawaii has plummeted to an estimated 123 individuals. At their current rate of decline, they are in danger of extinction throughout their range. Sea Turtle Restoration Project and allies have taken legal actions to increase protections for these marine mammals since 2003, applying constant pressure to reduce interactions with deadly longlines.
Current Management Efforts Failing
Longline fishing gear is an indiscriminate form of industrial fishing with severe bycatch problems. Prior legal actions have already closed the Hawaiian swordfish longline fishery and restricted the tuna longline fishery due to its high take of endangered sea turtles. Observers have confirmed that the rigs, often miles long with thousands of hooks, kill and injure false killer whales, humpback whales, dolphins, other marine mammals, and endangered sea turtles.
The “Curtain of Death”
Todd Steiner, Director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project said, “The industrial longline fishery is wiping out the oceans’ wildlife species and Hawaii’s false killer whales are only the latest identified victim. This non-selective fishing gear forms a curtain of death with its billions of baited hooks set each year and is driving endangered leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles and seabirds to the brink of extinction.”
For a fact sheet on false killer whales, click here.
To read our most recent press release on this campaign, click here.
Send a letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service below.
Oceans across the globe urgently need protections to ensure the long-term health of sea turtles, whales, dolphins, coral reefs and all marine life. Now we have a chance to support Australian conservationists in calling for marine sanctuaries in waters that are as incredible as the Great Barrier Reef but still vulnerable to oil and gas drilling, overfishing and pollution. Less than 1 percent of these waters are protected.
Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke is on the verge of making a decision on the size and location of new marine sanctuaries in Australia's South West. What makes the looming decision absolutely critical is that it will set the standard for marine protection for the rest of Australia for the next ten to twenty years. The marine life of places like the Kimberley, the Top End and much of the east coast are depending on this decision too.
Please join us in taking action to protect Australia’s marine environment by sending a message to Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke urging him to set aside significant areas in Southwest Australia as marine sanctuaries to ensure the survival of sea turtles and marine life to benefit the world’s oceans.
To learn more about the marine life of Southwest Australia, check out the gorgeous new "e-book", Atlantis Found here. Or to download the PDF version, click here.To learn more about our campaign to protect sea turtles in Australia and the Kimberley, click here.Photo above of Southwest coast along Cape to Cape Track by Teri Shore. Map at left courtesy of Save Our Marine Life campaign.
Marine Sanctuaries along the Northern California coast provide a safe haven for leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles that swim here from across the Pacific. Right now we have a rare opportunity to enlarge two marine sanctuaries that are important to sea turtles by more than 2,000 square miles of ocean habitat. But to make this happen, the U. S. Senate must pass new legislation before the end of 2010. Please join Sea Turtle Restoration Project in urging lawmakers to expand the marine sanctuaries before they adjourn for the holidays.
Photo copyright Doug Perrine/Seapics.com
Just outside the Golden Gate in San Francisco, the Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries safeguard critical feeding areas and migratory swimways for sea turtles. The cold, nutrient-rich upwelling waters in the sanctuaries also support 33 species of marine mammals alone: whales, elephant seals, sea lions, and seals. – all critical to healthy oceans.
Please urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to act quickly and take up S212, the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries Boundary Adjustment and Protection Act, sponsored by Senators Boxer and Feinstein. The bill is a prime candidate for inclusion in a larger omnibus lands bill has received wide support from state and local government, fishermen, environmentalists, and economic interests.
Thanks to all who helped us send thousands of comments in by the November 22nd deadline! Please add your name to our list of supporters for this issue by completing the action below.
Decades of industrial overfishing have decimated Atlantic bluefin tuna populations even before the BP oil spill contaminated their Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds. International management efforts have failed to prevent their populations crashing to 80 percent below historic levels. Urgent action is needed to prevent these magnificent fish from extinction.
Warm-blooded Atlantic bluefin tuna grow to almost ten feet and 900 pounds in 20 years and can swim at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. The amazing Atlantic bluefin tuna has an integral role in the ocean ecosystem and has global economic importance. Threats to their Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds range from industrial overfishing with longlines to oil drilling and polluted runoff. Overfishing, bycatch, and pollution jeopardize the Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds, threatening to push the species towards extinction.
Critical Spawning Habitat in the Gulf of Mexico
Protecting Atlantic bluefin tuna under the U.S Endangered Species Act would safeguard critical spawning grounds in the Gulf from the assault of deadly industrial fishing. The Sea Turtle Restoration Project and allies have already called for an outright end to surface longline fishing in the Gulf, whose indiscriminate hooks kill sea turtles and juvenile bluefin before they mature. Click here to learn more about this effort to protect Gulf sea turtles and bluefin tuna.
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meets this month in Paris, and the U.S. can send a strong message to its international allies in the ICCAT by granting Atlantic bluefin tuna ESA protections.
Urgent Action is Needed!
We only have until November 22 to support the recent finding by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to move forward on ESA listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna. Send the letter below and magnify your impact by adding your own personal reasons for protecting imperiled Atlantic bluefin tuna!
The construction of a proposed port along one of India’s critical olive ridley nesting beaches jeopardizes the future of this unique sea turtle population. The South Korean steel maker POSCO plans to construct the port at Jatadhar in Orissa that would introduce bright lights, massive vessels, and consistent dredging into sensitive habitat for these threatened sea turtles. Read more at our website.
Orissa's Unique Olive Ridley Population
Genetic studies show that olive ridley sea turtles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans originated from India, making the population in Orissa extremely valuable for conservation. "Protecting the habitat along the Orissa coastline takes on greater importance,” says ecologist and STRP ally Kartik Shanker, at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Obama and STRP Support India Partnerships
STRP members and friends can add international support to protect sea turtles with our partners in India. President Obama’s recent visit to India renewed the bonds between our two countries in the hope that we can work together for a better future.
Sign the petition below opposing the POSCO port project in Orissa because of the many threats it poses to India’s olive ridley sea turtles.
Mercury contamination of seafood is a widespread and serious public health problem. Studies have shown that mercury ingestion can lead to memory loss, developmental and learning disorders, vision loss, heart disease and in extreme cases, can even result in death.
The number one source of mercury in humans is through consumption of mercury-contaminated fish. The government has failed to protect the public from the dangers of mercury in fish. Seafood sellers are not required to warn fish buyers about mercury or label mercury-laden fish, leaving the burden of knowledge and awareness on the consumer. Eating fish should not be a toxic gamble.
The only reliable way to ensure a reduction of mercury exposure by eating seafood is to avoid known high-mercury fish such as swordfish, tuna, shark, king mackerel and tilefish.
BP’s oil and toxic dispersants continue to surface and spoil the wetlands and oceans so critical to endangered sea turtles struggling to recover from the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The long road to recovery is beginning, and we need your help today to ensure BP is held accountable for sea turtle and habitat losses, continued monitoring and public communication of current conditions, and a thorough cleanup and restoration of the Gulf of Mexico.
Sea Turtles, Wildlife, and Coastal Communities Must Have a Voice
BP has shown the world through its actions that they will ignore endangered sea turtles, seabirds, whales, and the very coastal communities in the Gulf that are directly affected by their oil. These voices must be heard in the Gulf of Mexico Restoration Plan effort being led by President Barack Obama's Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former Mississippi governor. Send the letter below urging that BP be held fully accountable for past, present, and future actions to heal the Gulf.
Please join Sea Turtle Restoration Project in establishing the strongest possible protections for marine mammals that are caught and killed or injured in international fisheries – a goal of zero bycatch as required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Please sign this petition to support U.S. regulations on imported seafood that will require all nations selling fish to the U.S. to prove that harm to marine mammals and other protected species was minimized or eliminated. Deadline August 29, 2010.
Every year hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, sea lions and other marine mammals are captured or killed by international fishing fleets, mostly in drift gillnets. Gillnets and longlines also capture threatened and endangered sea turtles, seabirds and other marine wildlife. Millions of pounds of fish caught in these deadly fisheries are allowed to enter the U.S. in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which requires a ban on imported fish caught in ways that harm marine mammals in excess of U.S. standards for domestic fisheries.
Until now the U.S. government has not enforced the MMPA for seafood imports nor defined what it means to comply with U.S. standards. National Marine Fisheries Service is now taking the first steps towards developing regulations to ensure that all seafood sold in the U.S. meets or exceeds domestic standards for protecting marine mammals from being harmed or killed as bycatch in commercial fisheries.
The U.S. is a very close second to Japan as the biggest importer of seafood in the world, consuming more than 5 billion tons of fish every year. Americans eat 16 pounds of seafood per capita, 80 percent of it imported. Even with more and more seafood being farmed (for better or worse), this hunger for fish takes a major toll on the oceans and marine mammals.
Marin's endangerd coho salmon are a state and national biological treasure. Their very existence is threatened by irresponsible development along spawning creeks which has already caused habitat quality to decline. Our efforts to save the coho critical habitat have resulted in new local guidance that can make a difference improving conditions for years to come.
Send the letter below to the Marin Board of Supervisors urging them to enact a strong riparian habitat ordinance that protects the San Geronimo Valley's fragile streamside ecosystem and ensures viable, native forests endure into the future to support healthy streams and resilient salmon populations.
The Marine Stewardship Council is currently considering certification of high-bycatch longline tuna and swordfish fleets that operate offshore of Florida in the U. S. Atlantic. Giving these deadly and wasteful fisheries the seal of sustainability with Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) eco-label would be environmentally irresponsible due to the significant levels of by-catch of endangered and threatened sea turtles, marine mammals, seabirds and fish species including bluefin tuna, billfish, rays and shark.
Not only is the fishery deadly to sea turtles, but tuna and swordish is harmful to your health because of mercury contamination. The U.S. FDA warns mothers and children not to eat swordfish and to severely restrict tuna consumption. See www.GotMercury.org
Photo of loggerhead sea turtle hooked on deck of longline vessel. MarMas/Oceana photo
Take Action Now!Help stop eco-certification of the Florida longline fishery for swordfish and tuna by taking these actions:
1. Sign the petition below to Marine Stewardship Council and MRAG Americas by August 10 to oppose the certification. We will submit the petition at the first stakeholder meeting being held on Aug. 11. But we will continue gathering signatures until we stop the certification.
2. Circulate a hard copy of the petition against MSC certification of the Florida tuna and longline fisheries and return to us so we can send as many signatures as possible to Marine Stewardship Council and MRAG Americas during the certification process that runs through Spring 2011. Click here to download the hard copy petition.
Since 1980, scientists in the Gulf of Mexico have known that chemical dispersants mixed with crude oil can result in a "supra-additive synergy" of toxic effects, a deadly combination to marine life (1).
The mixture of chemical dispersants applied to the BP oil spill has created a toxic soup of underwater oil that is poisoning sea turtle habitat from the ocean's surface to the seafloor. The exact ingredients in the toxic dispersants have never been revealed by BP or the companies that make them. No one knows the concentrations of these chemicals in the Gulf ecosystem, or when they are being applied close to coastal communities. The Sea Turtle Restoration Project needs your help to urge BP, federal agencies, and the Obama administration to stop the use of dispersants in the Gulf, and clean up the oil spill using less toxic methods.
Dispersant use on marine oil spills is prohibited in all of Europe. The U.S. recognizes them as a tool for minimizing the impact of oil spills, but since they increase the uptake of oil by marine organisms, the use of chemical dispersants is controversial (2). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initially prohibited dispersant use by BP in the Gulf, but now allows it to continue spraying Gulf waters day after day.
Send the Letter Below to Stop Further Use of Dispersants from Contaminating More Sea Turtle Habitat
Despite the massive BP oil spill, government officials continue to release Kemp’s ridley hatchlings from Texas nests into the soiled waters of the Gulf of Mexico without adequate consideration as to whether these baby turtles will get caught in the same currents that are now full of oil.
Kemp’s nests from throughout Texas are now safely incubating at Padre Island National Seashore and will be hatching soon! Current permits require that these babies be released at Padre Island as soon as they hatch, which under normal circumstances makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, the BP oil spill has created extraordinary circumstances that call for extraordinary action and a major change of plans.
Federal facilities are available that can serve as a foster home for these hatchlings while an expert working panel develops a plan.
Please send the email below to your U. S. Senators and government agencies to demand that Texas hatchlings be held at federally approved facilities until an emergency plan determines the safest place and time for release! [You may be asked for your zip code so your Senators can be identified. If you live outside the U. S., then enter our organization's zip code 94933 to submit your action.]
Multiple eye-witness accounts have established that endangered sea turtles are being burned alive in BP's cleanup efforts. Immediate change must occur so that ALL sea turtles are rescued from the Gulf Oil Spill as a top priority by Unified Command.
BP boats corral oil every day into "Burn Boxes," restricted areas where surface oil is set on fire. Wildlife rescue operations had not been allowed into these areas at all, and thanks to a flood of emails from our members and allies, biological observers are being placed on more BP boats.
To watch the YouTube video first-hand account of the boom and burn operation and read about BP blocking sea turtle rescue from the oil, click here to go to our website Campaign Updates. To read Los Angeles Times' story on "Death by Fire in the Gulf", click here.
Send the Letter Below to Rescue ALL Sea Turtles from Oil Before Boom and Burn
BP has already killed countless sea turtles in its careless and cruel operations managing the Gulf oil spill, and we must send a strong message to Federal Agencies and BP response managers in Louisiana and Florida where rescue operations are based that the public will not stand for this.
Photo: An endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle recovered from the oil slick waits for cleanup.
In a rare interview by a BP-hired local boat owner involved in the cleanup operations, eye-witness evidence has been established that endangered sea turtles are being burned alive in BP's cleanup efforts. To watch the YouTube video first-hand account of the boom and burn operation and read about BP blocking sea turtle rescue from the oil, click here to go to our website Campaign Updates. To read Los Angeles Times' story on "Death by Fire in the Gulf", click here.
Send the Letter Below to Rescue All Sea Turtles from Oil Before Boom and Burn
BP has already killed countless sea turtles in its careless and cruel operations managing the Gulf oil spill, and we must send a strong message to local, federal, and BP officials that the public will not stand for this.
Photo: a loggerhead sea turtle caught in the oil slick (AP, Nicole Bengiveno).
Send strong message to your California Senator to end wasteful plastic bags that harm sea turtles and ocean wildlife.
The California Senate is set to vote on AB 1998 before the end of the month. Take action below and share this web page to ensure we win this battle to lead our nation in reducing plastic waste!
Scientific studies on plastic ingestion by sea turtles all over the world prove conculsively that sea turtles are at great risk from suffocation, drowning, and death from pelagic plastic debris, especially plastic bags. The Sea Turtle Restoration Project's marine biologist, Dr. Chris Pincetich, authored a report summarizing the ocean plastic epidemic and its impacts on sea turtles. Click here to read our new report, A Ban on Plastic Bags Will Save the Lives of California's Endangered Leatherback Sea Turtles.
Californians use an estimated 19 billion single-use plastic bags every year. It is estimated that 90% of floating debris in the oceans is plastic. Plastic lasts for hundreds to thousands of years in our environment and may never biodegrade in the ocean.
Send the letter below to your California Senator to support AB 1998 to ban single-use plastic bags.
Endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles face a dangerous situation in Texas this July when shrimp season opens and increased enforcement of sea turtle protection is needed. With a third of the Gulf of Mexico closed to any fishing due to the oil spill, the opening of shrimp season in Texas could result in hundreds more shrimpers trawling the waters offshore of Kemp's ridley nesting beaches and hundreds more injured, stranded, and dead sea turtles on Gulf beaches.
Preparing for the Worst
Sending a strong message now to Texas Parks and Wildlife and NOAA will ensure our message has been received while planning actions are still taking place. Every year we urge greater enforcement of TEDs, but this year the deadly duo of offshore oil and increased fishing pressure has prompted a call to all our members and allies to send a strong message that we will not stand for any more dead sea turtles in the Gulf killed by careless or negligent shrimpers.
California's beach clean-up data shows that plastic bottle caps are among the most common littered items found on our coast. AB 925 proposes to address this problem by requiring that the plastic bottle caps remain connected to the plastic bottle, more than 60% of which are currently recycled, thereby significantly reducing the waste, litter, and threat to wildlife posed by discarded plastic bottle caps.
Support AB 2138 (Chesbro) Plastic Ocean Pollution Reduction, Recycling and Composting Act
The volume of nonrecycled single-use food packaging distributed annually in California is staggering: the fast food sector alone generates 4 million tons of waste annually in California and retailers are currently distributing almost 14 billion plastic bags annually.
AB 2138 would prohibit food providers from distributing single-use food packaging and bags unless they are accepted for either recycling or composting in at least 75% of households in a jurisdiction and are recovered at rate of at least 25%. This policy will make the fast food sector financially responsible to:
Switch to packaging that is compatible with the recycling and/or composting services available in the communities they serve.
Work with local governments and recyclers to increase processing and market capacity for recyclable and compostable packaging alternatives.
Work with consumers to ensure that their packaging is recycled or composted.
Chevron and Big Oil must stop building dirty energy projects on the backs of sea turtles!
Oil spills and new offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and around the world are threatening sea turtle nesting beaches and the oceans where they spend most of the lives. We exposed Big Oil’s harm to sea turtles in the Chevron Alternative Annual Report released with our international partners. [Read about the Chevron Alternative Annual Report or click report cover to download.]
Chevron is the largest oil and gas leaseholder in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and is lobbying hard to expand offshore drilling across the U.S. and around the world.
The massive BP/Deepwater oil spill could have been Chevron’s because it also contracts with Transocean, the company responsible for the oil rig meltdown.
On the opposite side of the globe Chevron is building natural gas plants on flatback sea turtle beaches and coastal waters in remote Northwest Australia. It’s time that Chevron and other Big Oil stop building dirty oil and gas projects on the backs of sea turtles.
Take Action to Defend the Sea Turtles from Big Oil
Send an email or write a letter, even better, to Chevron’s Board of Directors. Tell Lead Director Samuel H. Armacost that Chevron must change its ways before more sea turtles are harmed by oil spills and natural gas extraction.
The fragile ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico are soon to be covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon drilling accident and ensuing spill, and now is the time to call on President Obama to put a stop to future drilling efforts.
In addition to the harm from catastrophic spills, offshore oil drilling creates deadly oil and tar balls that float in the ocean and are ingested by sea turtles, and increased vessel traffic which causes deadly strikes. Read the summary by Dr. Chris Pincetich, marine biologist and environmental toxicologist.
Bring Back the Moratorium on Offshore Drilling
Help reverse the Bush administration's removal of the U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling that has led to the horrible environmental disaster in the Gulf that we face today.
Send the Obama administration a direct email below to stop offshore oil drilling and help endangered sea turtle recovery
NOTE: the Obama web form may load slowly, select "Environment" from the drop-down menu and wait for "Recaptura Field" security image to appear.
PHOTO: A loggerhead sea turtle caught in the Gulf oil slick, courtesy of Nicole Bengiveno, New York Times.
The Costa Rican government votes very soon on the controversial law that would degrade LasBaulas National Park to a mere national wildlife refuge. New Presidenta Laura Chinchilla takes office May 8, 2010.
Populations of Pacific leatherback sea turtles have crashed by 90 percent over the past two decades and are not recovering. During Oscar Arias’ administration, private development interests relentlesly attacked Costa Rica’s Leatherback Marine National Park (Las Baulas) located along the country’s northern Pacific Coast.
Thanks go out to our Board member and Costa Rican native Randall Arauz, who notified us of this critical development at noon today.
Send this new letter below urging rejection of Law Project 17.383 and supporting leatherback conservation before development profits.
Together, we can send strong message to our legislature to end wasteful plastic and the harm it inflicts on sea turtles and ocean wildlife.
It is estimated that 90% of floating debris in the oceans is plastic. Plastic lasts for hundreds to thousands of years in our environment and may never biodegrade in the ocean. A peer-reviewed scientific study found plastic ingestion was shown to be the cause of death for 34 percent of endangered leatherback sea turtles washed ashore. Over 267 species worldwide have been impacted by plastic litter and plastic bags.
Californians use an estimated 19 billion single-use plastic bags every year. The state spends $25 million annually to clean up and landfill these littered bags and this figure does not even include the over $300 million that local governments continue to spend to clean littered streets and waterways. Photo (C) Doug Perrine/Seapics.com
Send the letter below in support of AB 1998 to ban single-use plastic bags
Endangered hawksbill and green sea turtles thrive in sensitive coral reefs that would be destroyed if the plans to expand the Okinawa base are approved. This delicate ecosystem full of endangered sea turtles, the endangered Okinawa dugong, and over 1,000 species of reef fishes needs our help. These reefs already suffer the deadly effects of pollution from the current military base, and now the Obama administration is pushing to expand the base.
Save Sea Turtles and the Endangered Dugong
The habitat for the critically endangered dugong would be destroyed when the base expands onto Henoko reef. The U.S. Marine Mammals Commission and the World Conservation Union's dugong specialists have expressed concerns that the project would be a serious threat to the dugongs' survival. In response to threats to this species' survival, Japan's Mammalogical Society placed the culturally treasured dugong on its "Red List of Mammals" in 1997.
Send the letter below, contact your local senator, and
Shrimp Trawls Continue Deadly Interactions with Texas Turtles
The 21+ dead Kemp’s ridley sea turtles found before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill were likely the result of deadly shrimp trawl interactions in the Upper Texas Gulf Coast, an area currently not adequately protected by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) draft Recovery Plan for the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle. Texas nesting beaches and coastal habitat should be prioritized as needing more protections for these endangered sea turtles. Click here to read more.
Strengthen Texas Protections to Ensure Recovery Continues
If Kemp's ridley numbers keep growing at current rates, the turtle could be reclassified from endangered to threatened as early as 2015. The upper Texas Gulf Coast can expect greater numbers of turtles and must get increased habitat protections to strengthen recovery efforts.
UPDATE: Add to our letter, include "Stop offhore oil drillling and prioritize habitat restoration"
We have until July 1 to ask the Recovery Plan Committee to update their Plan to include the growing numbers of Kemp’s ridleys nesting on Texas beaches and accelerate the scientific process of identifying the most important marine foraging, breeding and inter-nesting habitat for these endangered sea turtles.
The Australian flatback turtle and five other species of marine turtles have been forgotten in the fossil fuel frenzy occurring in the Northwest of Western Australia. Chevron is building natural gas refineries and pipelines through critical sea turtle habitat with little, if any, protections for nesting beaches and coastal waters. Urgent action is needed to stop the destructive expansion of natural gas extraction here before it is too late for the flatbacks.his is a flatback sea turtle on Barrow Island where Chevron has already broken ground on a massive natural gas refinery on top of a rookery for 1,000 nesting females. These same sea turtles swim north to the Kimberley region where Chevron and Big Oil are pushing to construct another massive natural gas plan.
Join Dr. Sylvia Earle and global scientists in a letter to the Costa Rican government to reject the proposal to remove beach protections at Las Baulas National Park
Las Baulas National Park in northern Costa Rica is critical to the survival of the endangered eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). Populations of Pacific leatherbacks have crashed by at least 95 percent over the past two decades and are not recovering. Las Baulas National Park has an exceptional global value as it provides the most important nesting site for this remaining eastern Pacific population (Schillinger et al., 2010).
Join global marine scientists by signing-on to the bottom of the letter below to reject Bill 17.383 and continue Costa Rica’s commitment to protecting the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle, preserving its national parks, and investing in the extraordinary abundance of life protected within their boundaries.
Join, Dr. Sylvia Earle, oceanographer, author, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, NOAA Cheif Scientist 1990-1992,
Dr. Carl Safina, acclaimed author and Director of the Blue Oceans Institute,
Dr. David Ehrenfeld, founding editor of Conservation Biology, Rutgers University,
Dr. George Shillinger, leatherback researcher, Stanford University,
We need your support today to send a strong message to new President Laura Chinchilla. It is critical that you spread this letter to your colleagues if we are to have a chance to stop this dangerous precedent to reduce Costa Rica's strong habitat protections.
Join GotMercury.org in calling on food safety officials to require posting of mercury warnings wherever fish is sold and to cut by half the current 30-year-old mercury limits to better protect the health of women, children and anyone who eats tuna, swordfish and other seafood.
The primary source of mercury exposure in humans is through the consumption of fish. Scientific studies have shown that mercury ingestion can lead to memory loss, developmental and learning disorders, vision loss, heart disease and, in extreme cases, can result in death.
Food safety officials should do more to make our food safer.
Help the beautiful loggerheads seen in The Last Song with Miley Cyrus gain endangered status now!
Loggerheads seen nesting in The Last Song are in danger of extinction! President Obama's sea turtle experts are recommending that they be listed as endangered! Please let them know that you saw The Last Song and you think that the loggerheads must be protected so they can live forever along the coast of Georgia, Florida and around the world!
In the U.S., loggerheads are captured and harmed by fishing lines and hooks that crisscross sea turtle swimming and feeding zones. With endangered status, they will be protected from such dangers wherever they roam.
Make sure that this is not the last song for the loggerheads! Send a letter by September 13, 2010 to make your voice heard in favor of endangered protection for loggerheads that swim the waters of the United States and across the world's oceans!
Take Action Today!
1) Send your letter to the National Sea Turtle Coordinator, see below.
The Last Song Features Romantic Loggerhead Sea Turtle Scenes
In her new movie, The Last Song, international superstar Miley Cyrus falls in love while witnessing baby loggerhead sea turtles emerging from their nest on the beach in Tybee Island, Georgia. We need your help today to thank Miley Cyrus for highlighting loggerheads and to encourage her to join us in the fight to save these imperiled sea turtles from extinction.
Miley, Don't Let Destructive Fisheries be The Last Song for Imperiled Loggerheads
This romantic scene and the baby loggerhead sea turtle stars will be forever in the hearts and minds of millions of Miley fans. Now, we are asking Miley and all her fans to be partners with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project in helping loggerhead sea turtles in Georgia and around the globe to survive among pressures from fisheries, pollution, and impacts to nesting beaches.
There are THREE ways you can take action now to help loggerhead sea turtle conservation efforts
1) Sign the petition below to Miley Cyrus, encouraging her to take more action to promote the sea turtle conservation efforts of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project!
With your actions and contributions, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project will build a tidal wave of strong support for the proposal to list U.S. loggerheads as endangered species, designate strong critical habitat on nesting beaches and ocean migration corridors, and establish strong ocean policies that provide endangered sea turtles the protections they need to recover their population.
Sincerely,
Chris Pincetich, Ph.D, Campaigner & Marine Biologist
Write to Support the Proposed "Uplist" of Loggerheads to Endangered Status
Your letter supporting the endangered listing of loggerheads will affirm years of scientific studies that show distinct loggerhead populations are imperiled, and greater regulatory measures are needed for the recovery of these populations. Once listed as endangered, U.S. loggerheads will gain critical habitat protections under the Endangered Species Act.
In the U.S., our North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic loggerheads are under direct threat from longline fisheries that crisscross critical migratory and feeding habitats, and a strong message must be sent to the National Marine Fisheries Service to reduce loggerhead captures immediately to help the species recover.
Stop the Drowning of Loggerhead Sea Turtles in the Gulf of Mexico
THANK YOU TO 2,300 SEA TURTLE FANS WHO SIGNED THE PETITION TO PROTECT LOGGERHEADS FROM FLORIDA LONGLINE FISHING HOOKS!
We are waiting a final decision to stop this fishery from operating while harming loggerheads. The new proposal to list loggerheads as endangered will require more protections in this and other deadly fisheries.
And if endangered status doesn't finally stop the death toll, then our lawsuit will. Sign up for email news and updates on our home page www.seaturtles.org
Our collective Action closed the deadly Bottom Longline Fishery last year, but now the US Fisheries Service is proposing to re-open it.The horrible drowning deaths of loggerhead sea turtles on longline hooks in the Gulf of Mexico could being again, even as their nesting populations continue a major decline.
NOAA Proposes MORE Loggerhead Deaths
They will accept 1,152 loggerhead incidental takes and 631 dead loggerheads over the next three years, but we will not! Florida loggerhead nesting populations have declined more than 40 percent over the past decade, and 2009 was the fourth lowest nesting year on record, even with the emergency closure of the bottom longline fishery
Stop the Drowning of Loggerhead Sea Turtles in the Gulf of Mexico
Our collective Action closed the deadly Bottom Longline Fishery last year, but now the US Fisheries Service is proposing to re-open it. The horrible drowning deaths of loggerhead sea turtles on longline hooks in the Gulf of Mexico could being again, even as their nesting populations continue a major decline.
NOAA Proposes MORE Loggerhead Deaths
They will accept 1,152 loggerhead incidental takes and 631 dead loggerheads over the next three years, but we will not! Florida loggerhead nesting populations have declined more than 40 percent over the past decade, and 2009 was the fourth lowest nesting year on record, even with the emergency closure of the bottom longline fishery
Action must be taken NOW! Comments are due before March 1, 2010 Send a Fax by entering your information below, then click submit, to stop the re-opening the deadly bottom longline fishery in the Gulf before March 1! Then, Magnify YOUR Impact by signing our Petition, sharing this Action Alert on Facebook, and telling your friends to join our campaign.
Your voice is needed to gain long-term protections for important feeding and migrating waters for the endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtles along the West Coast of the U.S. Please take action by writing in support of critical habitat for leatherbacks by March 8.
In response to Turtle Island Restoration Network’s 2007 petition and 2009 lawsuit, NOAA has just announced its proposal to designate 70,600 square miles in areas offshore of California, Oregon, and Washington as critical habitat for the endangered leatherback sea turtle. The new protected areas for critically endangered sea turtles would set aside important jellyfish feeding areas and migratory routes as a safe haven from permanent ocean structures that inhibit migration, impact jellyfish populations the leatherback rely on, or contribute excess pollution. Read STRP's detailed press release on the critical habitat proposal.
Your public comments should strongly support this proposal, and call for additional improvements!
Keep fishing hooks out of turtle habitat! Entanglement in commercial fishing gear in the swordfish and tuna fleets is a leading killer of leatherbacks, but the new critical habitat proposal fails to address commercial fishery practices. Commercial fishing lobbies are tirelessly proposing new threats to sea turtles, and yet the critical habit designation has no provisions to monitor the habitat for longline hooks or drift gillnets that could prevent leatherbacks from reaching jellyfish-rich coastal waters. NOAA concluded that the commercial fishing practices are not an “impediment to the passage of leatherbacks to and from their foraging areas” and that the presence of commercial fishing gear never “altered the habitat.” Countless sea creatures are entangled and killed each year as bycatch in fishing gear, including sea turtles, clear evidence that commercial fishing CAN and DOES alter the quality of the leatherback’s habitat. So in your comments, demand a ban of long-line fishing in leatherback critical habitat.
Expand and Protect Leatherback Habitat! The critical habitat designation should include all Pacific waters in the current Leatherback Conservation Area, but the NOAA proposal excludes some habitat because “the potential costs outweighed the benefits of critical habitat designation.” Expansion of the proposed critical habitat NOW to include ALL leatherback migration and foraging areas along U.S. shores will provide the greatest level of protection from extinction for this iconic sea turtle.
Other activities NOAA seeks comment on include the effects of non-point source pollutants and poor water quality, permanent installations of wind energy and natural gas projects, effects of ocean acidification, and commercial vessel traffic.
Please send a fax, sign on to our petition, send a handwritten letter, and an electronic submission by April 23.
PHOTO Credit of leatherback eating jellyfish: David Wimpfheimer/Calnaturalist.com
With climate change beginning to take its toll on sea turtle nesting beaches, hatchling gender and food supplies, destroying habitat and generating new global warming gases would seem to be a counter-productive response. However, Chevron and Big Oil continue to push for drilling for oil and natural gas projects to produce more fossil fuel for burning – and increasing carbon dioxide emissions while extracting and exploiting resources along the way.
While the fossil fuel frenzy is occurring around the globe, one of the most blatant conflicts between Big Oil, global warming and sea turtles is in remote Northwestern Australia. Here Chevron and Shell among other international corporations are running roughshod over western and indigenous communities, government and the environment to push through LNG projects that will not only destroy sea turtle nesting habitat and pollute waters that are critical to calving whales, but generate tens of millions of tons per year or more of new carbon dioxide emissions every year.
Chevron broke ground in December 2009 on the Barrow Island Nature Reserve with its Gorgon natural gas project that will destroy nesting beaches for the "forgotten" Australian flatback sea turtles. Unlike the other six species of sea turtles, so little research has been done on these mysterious sea turtles that their international status as a species is described as "data deficient". However, the Western Australian government's environmental experts oppose the Gorgon project on Barrolw Island and stated earlier this year that: Put simply, the proposal as presented does not provide a reasonable prospect for the long term viability of this valuable turtle rookery. Read more about the Gorgon Project.
Sea turtles and whales that swim and nest along the wild Kimberley coast in Northwest Australia were ignored by Big Oil and the Western Australian government in deciding to site a new LNG gas plant near James Price Point – adjacent to humpback whale calving areas. Read more about saving the Kimberley.
It is not too late for Chevron to put the brakes on these projects and prevent the environmental, human and economic disasters that it has created at its refineries in California, the jungle of Ecuador, the forests of Nigeria, and other locations around the world. Read more about the True Cost of Chevron.
DENOUNCE THE U.S. DECISION TO INCREASE SEA TURTLE DEATHS IN HAWAII SWORDFISH FISHERY Tell President Obama and NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco to reverse their decision to remove all limits on deadly longline hooks that snare sea turtles. Send them a letter via email or better yet, write a hand-written letter by snail mail and copy your Congressional representatives.
Claiming that sea turtles can survive hooking in the mouth, fins and flippers on longlines set by the Hawaii-based swordfish fleet, the U. S. government has issued weak new fishing regulations taking affect in January 2010 that will:
- Triple the number of Pacific loggerhead sea turtle caught on longlines every year
- Remove all limits on the number of hooks to 4 million or more per year
- Allow near-extinct Pacific leatherback sea turtles to continue to be caught and killed in the fishery. Read more about the history of this wasteful, harmful fishery.
“I’m shocked that President Obama who is from Hawaii will allow more sea turtles to die in this wasteful fishery,” said Teri Shore, Program Director for Turtle Island Restoration Network, a non-profit that has been demanding better protections for sea turtles from industrial fisheries. “Every Pacific leatherback and loggerhead that we lose to a longline is a direct threat to the species’ survival and recovery from the brink of extinction.”
“The US government is going to allow even more sea turtles to be injured and killed to provide US consumers with swordfish, a product that is tainted with high levels of mercury. This is what we experienced and learned to expect from the Bush Administration, but we ‘hoped’ for something better from the Obama administration. It appears the fishing industry is still callsing the shots when it comes to protecting oceans and human health,” said Todd Steiner, biologist and Executive Director of Turtle Island Restoration Network.
The U.S. government is planning to build a new American military base atop a healthy coral reef in Okinawa, Japan, that will likely destroy the diverse array of marine life the reef supports, including dugongs, sea turtles and at least nine animal species threatened with extinction. We need your help to speak out. Please take a minute to send the letter below to President Barack Obama.
Turtle Island Restoration Network has joined with environmental groups on both sides of the Pacific Ocean in a lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco against the U.S. Department of Defense to stop the base. But we need your letters to the president to put a stop to it now, before it is too late.
address a historic problem, and supporters across the nation can help by adding their name below.
After five years of delay, the federal government finally plans to protect more than 739 miles of critical habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles on their nesting beaches along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts -- where they have been laying eggs for centuries! 
the state's hundreds of miles of coastline and across the Gulf of Mexico. Two bills working their way through the Texas Legislature, the Bottle Bills, would establish a program to increase plastic bottle recycling for cleaner waters, parks, highways, public lands and sea turtle nesting beaches! Both Senate Bill 645 and House Bill 1473 are "relating to water quality improvement and pollution reduction through beverage container recycling incentives."
Marin County has a historic opportunity to address a historic problem, and supporters across California can help by sending the email below.
has introduced a bill, AB 1142, to restrict smoking from California State Park beaches. This action would effectively reduce the amount of cigarette waste in California that could become litter in the ocean. This photo to the right shows an innocent sandpiper nibbling away at a discarded cigarette butt on the beach - a potentially harmful encounter.
use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use plastic bags, cups, straws, and most plastic items contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use carryout plastic bags contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
use of disposable plastic items in our modern society. Single-use carryout plastic bags contain toxic chemicals. When they pollute the ocean they are ingested by sea turtles, whales, seabirds and fishes with harmful, and sometimes fatal, consequences.
sea turtles migrate thousands of miles across the entire Pacific Ocean through deadly longlines and plastic pollution from their nesting grounds in Japan. They arrive along the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico to feed on the abundance of red crabs and can stay here for decades as they grow and mature. The red crabs also attract intense fishing and these loggerheads are confronted with invisible walls of death - thousands of gillnets stretched across Baja's coast.
and offshore feeding habitat for its survival. Its story over the last four decades is one of deadly hardship and hopeful recovery. Together with Carole Allen, our Gulf of Mexico Director, students in Texas have successfully introduced a bill to create a law to name the Kemp's ridley the official State Sea Turtle of Texas!
is known by locals as "The Country" because it is the only part of the island not yet inundated by massive tourist developments. The proposed expansion of Turtle Bay Resort, the biggest private hotel and condo complex in the area, will have devastating impacts for generations to come. 
Just last week, the Western Australian government decided to give final environmental approval to the project over the objections of more than 240 official appeals, including one lodged by SeaTurtles.org about harm to vulnerable sea turtle species. 
Each year, tens of millions of sharks are killed by overfishing to supply the shark fin trade.
Thanks to you and thousands of sea turtle lovers and dozens of conservation groups, the Pacific leatherback is NOW the offiicial sea turtle of California!
Thanks Governor Brown for signing AB 1776 by taking action today! 
Around the world every day, industrial fishing takes seafood out of the ocean for restaurants, grocery stores, and our dinner tables.
Because the drift gillnet fishery is so deadlly to marine life of all kinds, it has been severely restricted. The use of longline gear to catch swordfish along our coast has been completely banned due to bykill of sea turtles. Yet federal fishery officials in defiance of longstanding California state policy and conservation laws are trying to expand this unsustainable fishery again!
With climate change beginning to take its toll on sea turtle nesting beaches and food supplies, destroying habitat and generating new global warming gases would seem to be a counter-productive response. However, Chevron and Big Oil continue to push for drilling for oil and natural gas projects to produce more fossil fuel for burning – and increasing carbon dioxide emissions while extracting and exploiting resources along the way.
that is home to protected species of birds, fishes and marine mammals. It drains into Drakes Bay, a sanctuary for endangered leatherback sea turtles that migrate across the entire Pacific Ocean to reach abundant jellyfish blooms. However, plans approved by Congress to expand marine wilderness protections throughout this sensitive habitat are uncertain.
Sea Turtle Restoration Project and partner organizations, new protections have been proposed to protect the imperiled false killer whales that inhabit the Hawaiian Islands. This local population of beautiful and intelligent mammals has plummeted to an estimated 123 individuals. Longline fishermen are their biggest threat, and with your support, these longlines could be banned from 177,000 square miles of ocean.
Thank you to the thousands of supporters who joined us in calling for a halt to the sea turtle killings by the Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl fishery before the August 23 deadline! You can still sign-on below to be added to our list of sea turtle supporters.
on Texas sea turtle nesting beaches, a move we support that can save the lives of adult and hatchling sea turtles. Extensive research and public opinion surveys found that vehicles on Texas park beaches should not exceed 15 mph in summer for the safety of sea turtles.
The pristine waters of Cocos Island, Costa Rica are home to the 
Australia's flatback sea turtles need our help to stop BIg Oil from ruining the Kimberley coast of Northwest Australia. This remote red rock country is wild and sacred to traditional owners. Sea turtles swim the coast for hundreds of miles from nesting beaches to feeding areas. Satellite tracking of nesting flatbacks has confirmed this expanse of coastal ocean as a pristine marine highway. 
Chronic exposure to oil could weaken sea turtles, poisoning them slowly. The increased fishing pressure, even with required Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) on most shrimp trawls, could kill poisoned animals that would normally struggle to safety. 
THANK YOU - NEARLY 3,000 PEOPLE SENT A MESSAGE TO AUSTRALIA TO STOP SHELL FROM DRILLING NEXT TO NINGALOO REEF! This was our biggest action of the year - amazing since the turn-around time was only a few days! Your voices will make a difference. We promise to let you know when a decision is made - and we are confident that this project will be stopped!
Please help stop Shell in its tracks by sending a letter of opposition to the Australian government by Sunday, March 20, (U.S.) which is Monday, March 21 in Australia. Thank you for taking action on such short notice! Take action below!
THANK YOU - WE DELIVERED MORE THAN 2,300 MESSAGES OF OPPOSITION TO THE KIMBERLEY GAS HUB BY THE MARCH 28 DEADLINE!
and imperiled bluefin tuna in their high seas migratory and spawning areas. To reduce unsustainable bycatch of bluefin critical to the Atlantic populations’ continued existence, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed switching to experimental “weak hooks” that should bend and release the largest bycatch. This unproven fishing gear is a weak solution to a serious problem.
The president’s expert commission released its final report this week calling for systematic reform to overhaul offshore oil drilling safety and environmental regulations, but they overlooked protective measures for sea turtles. During the BP spill, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and allies forced BP to halt burning endangered sea turtles alive and forced independent wildlife observers trained in sea turtle rescue to be on all cleanup vessels.
Oceans across the globe urgently need protections to ensure the long-term health of sea turtles, whales, dolphins, coral reefs and all marine life. Now we have a chance to support Australian conservationists in calling for marine sanctuaries in waters that are as incredible as the Great Barrier Reef but still vulnerable to oil and gas drilling, overfishing and pollution. Less than 1 percent of these waters are protected.
Please join us in taking action to protect Australia’s marine environment by sending a message to Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke urging him to set aside significant areas in Southwest Australia as marine sanctuaries to ensure the survival of sea turtles and marine life to benefit the world’s oceans.
Marine Sanctuaries along the Northern California coast provide a safe haven for leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles that swim here from across the Pacific. Right now we have a rare opportunity to enlarge two marine sanctuaries that are important to sea turtles by more than 2,000 square miles of ocean habitat. But to make this happen, the U. S. Senate must pass new legislation before the end of 2010. Please join Sea Turtle Restoration Project in urging lawmakers to expand the marine sanctuaries before they adjourn for the holidays.
critical olive ridley nesting beaches jeopardizes the future of this unique sea turtle population. The South Korean steel maker POSCO plans to construct the port at Jatadhar in Orissa that would introduce bright lights, massive vessels, and consistent dredging into sensitive habitat for these threatened sea turtles. 
wetlands and oceans so critical to endangered sea turtles struggling to recover from the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The long road to recovery is beginning, and we need your help today to ensure BP is held accountable for sea turtle and habitat losses, continued monitoring and public communication of current conditions, and a thorough cleanup and restoration of the Gulf of Mexico.
Every year hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, sea lions and other marine mammals are captured or killed by international fishing fleets, mostly in drift gillnets. Gillnets and longlines also capture threatened and endangered sea turtles, seabirds and other marine wildlife. Millions of pounds of fish caught in these deadly fisheries are allowed to enter the U.S. in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which requires a ban on imported fish caught in ways that harm marine mammals in excess of U.S. standards for domestic fisheries.
Despite the massive BP oil spill, government officials continue to release Kemp’s ridley hatchlings from Texas nests into the soiled waters of the Gulf of Mexico without adequate consideration as to whether these baby turtles will get caught in the same currents that are now full of oil.
Oil spills and new offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and around the world are threatening sea turtle nesting beaches and the oceans where they spend most of the lives. We exposed Big Oil’s harm to sea turtles in the Chevron Alternative Annual Report released with our international partners.
The Costa Rican government votes very soon on the controversial law that would degrade LasBaulas National Park to a mere national wildlife refuge. New Presidenta Laura Chinchilla takes office May 8, 2010.
The Australian flatback turtle and five other species of marine turtles have been forgotten in the fossil fuel frenzy occurring in the Northwest of Western Australia. Chevron is building natural gas refineries and pipelines through critical sea turtle habitat with little, if any, protections for nesting beaches and coastal waters. Urgent action is needed to stop the destructive expansion of natural gas extraction here before it is too late for the flatbacks.his is a flatback sea turtle on Barrow Island where Chevron has already broken ground on a massive natural gas refinery on top of a rookery for 1,000 nesting females. These same sea turtles swim north to the Kimberley region where Chevron and Big Oil are pushing to construct another massive natural gas plan.
The Last Song Features Romantic Loggerhead Sea Turtle Scenes
