JULY 8,
2019
by
Kristen Morales, University
of Georgia
This
summer is shaping up to be a banner year for sea turtles, according to data
collected by University of Georgia researchers.
By early
July, roughly halfway through the annual nesting season along the southeastern
coast of the United States, more than 10,000 loggerhead sea turtle nests have
been logged by organizations and volunteers and reported to the Northern
Recovery Unit Loggerhead DNA Project, housed in UGA's Warnell School of
Forestry and Natural Resources. Before this year, the highest number of nests
recorded was 11,321 in 2016—representing a full season of data.
"There's
no question in my mind that we will break that record," said Joe Nairn, a
professor who, with assistant research scientist Brian Shamblin, developed a
system of identifying and tracking female loggerheads by using the DNA
extracted from their eggshells.
Nairn attributes
this year's success to two factors: Better nest protection efforts that began
in the 1960s, as well as the increased use of "turtle excluder
devices" in shrimp trawler nets.
Because
it takes 30 to 40 years for a sea turtle to mature to reproductive age,
better nest protections
mean more turtles have been able to hatch and make their way back to the ocean,
Nairn said. And with the increased use of the turtle excluder devices, he
added, more turtles are able to survive longer into their reproductive years.
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