Leatherback turtle offshore of Moss Landing, California. Photographed by Michael Sack, Sanctuary Cruises

In October and November, three different species of sea turtles have been reported in Monterey Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary waters.

It's unusual for sea turtles to venture into temperate waters. Other species also visit  when surface waters warm up, and this fall has been unusually warm with surface temperatures approaching 60 degrees F.

In October, an olive ridley sea turtle beached itself in Pacific Grove. Riding along the warm counter currents, these turtles are sometimes “cold-stunned” when  the warmer currents disappear, stranding the turtles in colder bay waters. The turtle is currently being cared for at the Monterey Bay Aquarium until it can be returned to the wild.

The olive ridley sea turtle are considered the most abundant of the seven species, yet globally they have declined by more than 30% from historic levels. These turtles are considered endangered because of the loss of nesting sites in the world. The eastern Pacific turtles have been found to range from Baja California, Mexico to Chile. The nests of Pacific olive ridley are located around Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Northern Indian Ocean; the breeding colony in Mexico was listed as endangered in the U.S. on July 28, 1978.

Early this month, a rare sighting of a green sea turtle was reported at the commercial wharf in Monterey. Local sea turtle experts positively identified a male green sea turtle from photos and videos. Green sea turtles are generally found south of San Diego, but have been sighted as far north as southern Alaska in the eastern Pacific.  This turtle was outside of its normal range, and is a very rare sighting this far north and especially so close to the shore.

The green turtle was listed under the Endangered Species Act on July 28, 1978. The breeding populations in Florida and the Pacific coast of Mexico are listed as endangered. In 2004, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the green sea turtle as an endangered species, worldwide.

More common to our local waters is the giant eastern Pacific leatherback  sea turtles. Leatherback sea turtles are the largest, deepest diving of all sea turtle species and are found swimming in all oceans across the globe.

Leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean are in far greater danger of extinction than Atlantic Ocean populations due to greater commercial fishing, illegal poaching, ocean pollution, and nesting beach destruction in the Pacific. Leatherbacks in the Pacific can be divided into two primary populations: those that nest in the eastern Pacific and those that nest in the west.

Leatherbacks in the eastern Pacific population primarily nest in Central America and spend most of their lives offshore of nesting beaches or migrating to foraging areas. The largest foraging area is off the shore of Chile in the southeastern Pacific. The corridor above the Cocos Ridge of seamounts is a migration area of critical importance to many species between Cocos Island and Easter Island. However, some nesting occurs in Mexico and foraging leatherbacks from the eastern Pacific population may venture into California waters to feed.

In 1990, the California State Legislature banned all longline fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to prevent the deaths of leatherbacks sea turtles. Then in 2008, the California Legislature passed Assembly Joint Resolution No. 62 (Leno) for west coast sea turtle protection, supporting efforts to preserve and recover Pacific leatherback populations.

The Marin non-profit organization, Sea Turtle Restoration Project’s (STRP),  is working to protect these and all species of endangered sea turtles. Their work has resulted in the National Marine Fisheries Service establishing critical habitats for the leatherback within much of the California, Oregon, and Washington EEZ.

In an effort to enhance recovery prospects for the critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle, they initiated a “citizen scientist” research program as part of its volunteer Leatherback Watch Program.  The program tracks sightings of leatherbacks off the northern California coast, coordinating with recreational sailors, whale watchers, and scientists.  This region is an essential feeding area for leatherbacks that swim across the entire Pacific Ocean from nesting beaches to reach the abundant jellyfish blooms that occur each summer in the California Current marine ecosystem. This year,  the Leatherback Watch Program recorded over twenty sightings in our local waters.

We can also follow a live green sea turtle tagged by the researchers from the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. The scientists capture sea turtles off Cocos Island, an island 400 miles off the coast of Costa Rica. Brought aboard the vessel, the scientists weigh, measure, take blood and tissue for DNA analysis and equip the turtles with special satellite tags. These tags send a radio signal to a satellite and relay the position back to a computer.

Fillmore the Turtle by Jim Toomey.

Named Fillmore after cartoonist Jim Toomey’s comical creation, this real sea turtle’s wanderings can be followed on the STRP web site.  In the past week, Fillmore the Green sea turtle swam north then east, making it back into the protected "No Take" area 12 nautical miles around Cocos Island National Park.  Let's hope Fillmore makes it east to the nesting beaches without encountering long lines or plastic bags. Data indicates that 80 percent of the debris on our beaches and shorelines comes from inland sources, traveling through our storm drains or creeks out to the beaches and oceans.  When litter enters sea turtle feeding areas in the ocean, it can have deadly consequences for sea turtles that mistake the debris for food.

We can help protect these and other sea turtles by "Bagging the Plastics" and taking action to reduce the plastic waste polluting sea turtle feeding areas in the ocean.  Fillmore and other sea turtles can use your help by sending a letter to the Costa Rican president asking for more protections at Cocos Island National Park.

Until the battery on the radio transmitter dies, we can follow Fillmore’s voyage and his exploits. Maybe one day Fillmore’s counterparts will visit our Sanctuary in greater numbers in a conservation success story.

I'm currently with a team of Costa Rican biologists from the environmental organization Pretoma on the vessel Sirneuse to film and tag turtles and sharks at Cocos Island. Image courtesy of Matt Potenski and Pretoma.

With the implementation of the Marine Life Protection Act in California, marine protected areas are in the news. Although we have protected over 10% of our land areas through parks, wilderness areas and nature reserves, the ocean is still hovering around 1% of area under some kind of protection. California is attempting to remedy this by setting aside a network of marine protected areas, protecting some 20-25% of the California coastline. The last stages are coming to the San Francisco Bay this year.

California is not alone in attempting to establish marine protected areas also known as MPAs. Countries like New Zealand, Australia and Belize have been active in establishing MPAs.
What is a marine protected area anyway? There are as many definitions as there are ecosystems, but essentially it is an area of ocean with defined boundaries and defined protections that are legally enforceable. Some areas such as marine parks allow mixed use including fishing and recreation. Others such as marine reserves are defined in California to have some public use but no take of marine life.

The latter are the most controversial because they exclude fishermen from their recreation or trade. Whatever the controversy, the facts are clear that we are overfishing our ocean and destroying habitat faster than we are protecting it. There is some pretty solid science indicating the benefit of no-take reserves to the protected habitat and areas outside the protected region. Reserves act as sources of fish and invertebrates well beyond the boundaries. In Florida, where a closure near Cape Canaveral resulted in bigger and more abundant grouper and snapper, a phenomenon developed called “fishing the line,” meaning catching fish spilling at the edge of the protected boundary.

The same phenomenon occurs in New Zealand where lobster pots are so numerous along the protected zone’s edge they resemble a defined border like a swim zone. The fish and invertebrates protected inside the reserve are spilling out to the areas outside the protection.
Larval fish spread out in the current, casting seeds for future fish downstream.

The problem in any case is observance and enforcement. There have been success in countries with resources to enforce and convict violators, but many of the areas on the global map are in name only – "paper parks." Boats fish freely in world heritage sites and areas designated protected by governments. I am writing this from one such area outside Cocos Island approximately 400 miles off the coast of Costa Rica. I am currently with a team of Costa Rican biologists from the environmental organization Pretoma on the vessel Sirneuse to film and tag turtles and sharks at Cocos Island.

Cocos is a volcano rising from the deep sea and is an oasis of life from sharks and large fish to manta rays. The government has designated a no-take area 12 miles around Cocos Island over a decade ago, but there has been rampant poaching in the reserve. Recently Costa Rica created the Seamount Management Marine Area that will extend the Cocos Island protected area to 9640 Km2 (nearly 3700 square miles) has been established to protect pinnacles and migratory pathways for fish and sharks. The objective is to protect sharks and other species at risk such as sea turtles from the tuna fishery.
However, these areas are fished for tuna and even sharks with little fear of enforcement.

The Protema biologists tell me that there are several challenges enforcing illegal fishing within the protected zone. The law says that the longlines set for fish must be attached to the boat and inside the reserve to be enforced. Costa Rica does not have a navy, and the Coast Guard primarily enforces against illegal drugs and not fishing. The rangers and the non profit located on Cocos (Marviva) can only report illegal activity to the authorities. If enforcement arrives, they generally find an abandoned longline filled with dead fish and sharks.

Despite public denial by officials, sharks are being finned in Costa Rican waters. Finning is illegal in Costa Rica, yet it is common knowledge that shark fins have been unloaded at private docks behind guarded compounds. Two weeks ago Pretoma forced the courts to uphold the law requiring sharks to be landed at the public docks. Not long after the crew of a Taiwan flagged vessel was apprehended unloading shark fins at the public docks. "The system is working", said Randall Arauz, president of Pretoma. "Clearly, the international fleet needs the privacy of its private docks to hide its shark finning activities, but now it must respect our laws", added Arauz with satisfaction.

In order to protect marine resources we need to have the support of the public and vigilance by watchdogs like Pretoma. However, protecting the ocean from the impacts of fishing are difficult even with enforcement, Protecting the waters from impacts from the land such as run off and ocean acidification cannot be implemented by drawing a line on a map. In San Francisco the last
stage of the MLPA is now underway. With significant influence from
the and, and with potential sea level rise, the best we can do is protect and restore damaged habitat and protect large enough areas such as ecosystems which include fish like our shark nurseries and habitat for sea grass and native oysters to flourish.

Protecting far ranging species like sharks through MPAS is also not easily attained. Sharks cross international borders and roam far past the protection of any single marine protected area. Open ocean MPA’s have been proposed but will take international agreement and the cooperation of the pelagic fishing fleet. At best we can protect nurseries such as the San Francisco Bay and Biodiversity hot spots in the ocean like the waters surrounding Cocos Island. Islands and submarine pinnacles such as Cocos and the new protected area are theoretically large enough to better protect the large migratory species like some species of sharks. However, we need to increase enforcement and alter consumption patterns to support sustainable fisheries. Clearly eating shark fin, or Bluefin tuna sushi is not sustainable. Even with good enforcement, there will be problems, but recognizing the need for marine protected areas is a place to start, even if it’s still only on paper.

37.7699 -122.467174

Comparing a Head Started turtle to one that hibernated in the wild.Alright, I am going to say the "C" word: these little guys are cute! As an environmental professional, I know this is a word I am not supposed to use, but it is impossible not to.

Barely bigger than a quarter, the baby Western Pond Turtles were drawing a cooing crowd of Oakland Zoo staff in their new, but temporary, home in the back room of the Bug House. Here, our animal management staff will happily feed and care for them until they grow big enough to fend for themselves back in their home in Lake County.

Nicholas Geist of Sonoma State University began a study of these natives when he feared that global warming would affect their future. As the sex of baby turtles is determined by temperature, he was curious if future high temperatures would cause only one future sex. In his exploration of the issue, he found these turtles to have some other serious current environmental challenges.

To begin with, development near turtle habitat intrudes upon food availability and nesting sites for females, as they lay their eggs away from the water on the land nearby. American Bullfrogs, a non-native, predate upon the hatchlings, and Red Eared Slider Turtles, also a non-native, compete for basking space and food. These turtles are commonly sold at pet stores without proper instructions and subsequently released by owners thinking they are doing the right thing. They grow twice the size and are more assertive than the Western Pond Turtles, and pretty much take over.

In a partnership with Sonoma County Fish and Wildlife Commission and Sonoma State University, the Head Start program sends Oakland Zoo staff and Sonoma State University students into the wild to collect eggs which are incubated at the university. Once hatched, they are transferred to the zoo to be raised for the first year under optimal conditions. By creating the best possible environment for the turtles, they grow 3-4 times faster than they would in the wild, where they would normally hibernate. At the end of the first year, the juvenile turtles will then be released back into their original lake, having grown too large to be eaten by those pesky bull frogs and the big mouth bass, and able to compete with those bully Red Eared Sliders. They will be bigger, smarter and…head started. Sigh…we will be so proud.

37.7772 -122.166595

Another species that TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators) is tracking is the Leatherback Turtle. Reaching 7 feet long and weighing 2000 pounds, leatherbacks have survived in the world's oceans for 100 million years. Now they may only have decades left. While sea turtles are not being commercially fished, they still face daunting challenges in the open ocean. They are often accidentally caught and drowned in fisherman's long-lines and nets. And pollution is also taking a nasty toll. In the water, common plastic bags look very similar to the turtles' favorite food: jellyfish. The problem is, plastic bags aren’t easy to digest. But the biggest problem the turtles face may be on land. Over harvesting of turtle eggs has long been a problem for sea turtles but now the biggest concern is over development of their nesting beaches. Turtles need a sandy beach to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, people also enjoy vacationing in the same type of places. Humans looking for that seaside getaway are quickly gobbling up the sea turtles nesting grounds. Researchers are now working hard to save these vital nesting grounds to make sure the turtles can survive.

Watch the "Tagging Pacific Predators " TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also don't miss our Web Extra: Tagging Pacific Predators Extended Interview with scientist Barbara Block of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center.

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.

36.593744 -121.882421