Wildlife

Largest-Ever U.S. 'Critical Habitat' Set for Loggerheads

Earlier this month, sea turtles gained a huge victory when the U.S. federal government announced the largest designation of critical habitat in the nation's history for the loggerhead sea turtles on the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a joint announcement last week to designate 685 miles of beaches and more than 300,000 square miles of ocean as protected habitat for the creatures and their ecosystem.

Loggerheads spend most of their lives in the water, where they migrate tens of thousands of miles over their lifetimes to feed, grow, mate and nest. Unfortunately, fulfilling those basic needs puts them in harm's way.

From birth, hatchling loggerheads are already at risk from being trampled by beach traffic or disoriented by artificial lighting, as they are hardwired to navigate by the moon's light. If they safely reach the water, they find cover and food in mats of Sargassum algae, but must be careful not to ingest the millions of small pieces of plastic that also accumulate in the floating plants. As the young sea turtles grow into adults over the next twenty years, they can be captured in fishing gear, hooked on longlines, hit by speeding boats or coated in oil. Threatened by human activities throughout their entire lives, it is no surprise that this and other sea turtle populations have precipitously declined over the last decades.