Date: September 3, 2018
Source: University of California - Santa Cruz
Summary:
A new
study uses tracking data for 14 species of migratory marine predators, from
leatherback turtles to blue whales and white sharks, to show how their
movements relate to the geopolitical boundaries of the Pacific Ocean. The
results provide critical information for designing international cooperative
agreements needed to manage these species.
The
leatherback sea turtle is the largest living turtle and a critically endangered
species. Saving leatherback turtles from extinction in the Pacific Ocean will
require a lot of international cooperation, however, because the massive
turtles may visit more than 30 different countries during their migrations.
A new
study uses tracking data for 14 species of migratory marine predators, from
leatherback turtles to blue whales and white sharks, to show how their
movements relate to the geopolitical boundaries of the Pacific Ocean. The
results provide critical information for designing international cooperative
agreements needed to manage these species.
"If
a species spends most of its time in the jurisdiction of one or two countries,
conservation and management is a much easier issue than it is for species that
migrate through many different countries," said Daniel Costa, professor of
ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and a coauthor of the study,
published September 3 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
"For
these highly migratory species, we wanted to know how many jurisdictional
regions they go through and how much time they spend in the open ocean beyond
the jurisdiction of any one country," Costa said.
Under
international law, every coastal nation can establish an exclusive economic
zone (EEZ) extending up to 200 nautical miles from shore, giving it exclusive
rights to exploit resources and regulate fisheries within that zone. The high
seas beyond the EEZs are a global commons and are among the least protected
areas on Earth. Discussions have been under way at the United Nations since
2016 to negotiate a global treaty for conservation and management of the high
seas.
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