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AUGUST 2004

Sea Turtles: Ambassadors of the Ocean to Your Classroom
By Robert Ovetz, Ph.D.

Sea turtles are, as world renowed" oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle likes to say, "ambassadors of the oceans".

Connecting our terrestrial homes to the vast oceans covering 70 percent of our planet, sea turtles can also serve as ambassadors to the classroom. By studying the plight of sea turtles, students learn about marine biology, international relations, distant cultures, sustainability, climate change, pollution, health, and a wide range of other conservation issues.

The new documentary film, "Last Journey for the Leatherback?," directed by award winning filmmaker Stan Minasian, investigates the risks to the ancient leatherback sea turtle posed by longline fishing for tuna, swordfish and shark. The leatherback species, unique among sea turtles for its leathery covering rather than a hard shell, is estimated to be as much as 100 millions old. Unfortunately, the number of nesting females in the Pacific has nose-dived by 95 percent since 1980. Scientists warn that the Pacific leatherback could go extinct within the next 5-30 years unless immediate action is taken to reverse its descent.

"Last Journey" examines the ecosystem-wide threat caused by longline fishing, as well as by pollution, poaching and predation. Longline fishing is deadly not only to sea turtles but kills and maims an estimated 4.4 million other sharks, porpoises, dolphins, sea birds, seals, billfish and whales. In fact, the unwanted catch of sharks by longlining is so high that rising consumer demand for shark fin soup has fueled the wasteful industry of shark finning, turning a species once considered a nuisance into a pot of gold.

Longlining is a prime contributor to the depletion of our fisheries and exhaustion of our oceans from unsustainable fishing practices that consume massive resources while wasting as much as 40 percent of its catch. As a result, recent scientific studies warn that predatory fish stocks have collapsed to a mere 10 percent of their pre-industrial levels.

The collapse of our global fisheries threatens the food security of the 1 billion people who rely on fish as their primary source of protein. In the South Pacific, the world's largest sources of tuna and swordfish, local traditional fishing communities can no longer catch enough fish to feed themselves and are even being locked out of their traditional fishing grounds. Impoverished communities are increasingly no longer able to afford once inexpensive locally caught fish because industrial foreign vessels have wiped out their fisheries to serve lucrative export markets in Europe, the US and Japan.

At the same time, seafood consumers in Western countries are also facing threats from consuming toxic fish. Predatory fish such as tuna, swordfish and shark caught by longlines are high in the dangerous neuro-toxin methylmercury, which accumulates up the food chain by attaching itself to fatty tissue. Sadly, we are emptying our ocean to catch fish that is too poisonous to eat, using a technology that is deadly to sea turtles.

Poisonous seafood has stirred extensive controversy in California where Prop 65 requires that supermarkets post signs at their fish counters warning pregnant women and nursing mothers of the danger of methylmercury poisoning. This summer, the Attorney General of California filed a lawsuit against the three big tuna canning companies to force them to also warn consumers about the dangers of methylmercury. Complemented by an on-line Seafood Watch buyers guide available from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, the documentary and website www.gotmercury.org can be an invaluable asset in teaching nutrition, cooking, and consumer responsibility. 

While California is concerned about the dangers to humans, international scientists from all over the world have issued an urgent warning about longlines. To date, 622 scientists from 54 countries, including former U.S. astronaut Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. (M.D.), and representatives of 173 non-governmental organizations from 35 countries have called on the United Nations to impose a moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific.

With the rising international concern for these issues, global action is critical to saving the leatherback from extinction. The UN can be instrumental in saving the ambassador of the ocean, a lesson in environmental awareness and social responsibility that can be taught in our classrooms.#

[Longline fishing refers to the technique that uses as many as 3,000 baited hooks on monofilament lines up to 60 km to catch large fish species such as tuna, swordfish and shark.]

Robert Ovetz, Ph.D. is the Save the Leatherback Campaign Coordinator with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and an adjunct instructor of Environmental Science at The Art Institute of California-San Francisco. For more information visit www.seaturtles.org

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