SWOT REPORT - The State of the World's Sea Turtles
Reveals Unprecedented Global View of Endangered Sea Turtles

Leatherbacks Headline Important New Publication for Marine Conservationists

Crete, Greece - Today at the 26th annual International Sea Turtle Symposium, several hundred experts are seeing for the first time a publication that offers a new view of sea turtle conservation-a global view. This first volume of SWoT Report, produced by the State of the World's Sea Turtles (SWoT) initiative, is a product of collaboration by Conservation International, Duke University's Marine Geospatial Ecology Laboratory, IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG), International Sea Turtle Society, and more than 150 other individuals and institutions from 46 countries.

SWoT has tackled the foremost deficiency in sea turtle conservation: lack of a centralized resource for global sea turtle data. For globally migrating, highly threatened animals such as sea turtles, a global conservation perspective is crucial to their survival. SWoT is bringing together numerous local- and regional-scale data from around the world to generate a broader, planet-wide view of sea turtles and their habitats.

SWoT Report (Volume I) highlights SWoT's first year of data collection in a centerfold map of leatherback nesting beaches around the world. This GIS representation of nesting site data-including counts of nesting females, false crawls, nests, tagged females, and more-is the newest, most comprehensive global map of leatherback data.

The largest of the sea turtles, the leatherback is listed as "Critically Endangered" in the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species, indicating that its numbers have been reduced by at least 80% over the past 10 years or three generations. Off the Pacific coast of the Americas, the leatherback population has plunged more than 90% in the past two decades. Feeding primarily on jellyfish and diving to depths greater than 1,000 meters, leatherbacks are uniquely specialized; they can measure up to nine feet in length and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. A truly global species, leatherbacks are powerful swimmers that regularly cross entire oceans between feeding grounds and reproductive sites.

Organized into five sections, SWoT Report includes articles interesting not only to the conservation community, but to all of the audiences across the globe that can have an impact on ocean conservation, including the fishing industry, tourist operations, seafood consumers, and policymakers.

Roderic B. Mast, co-chair of IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group and a vice president of Conservation International, comments on the need to raise awareness amongst diverse audiences: "Sea turtles have outlived dinosaurs by 65 million years, but today they face their greatest threat: us. The grave declines in sea turtle populations are all direct results of human actions like fishing, seafood consumption, coastal development, direct take, pollution, and global warming."

Grazing on ocean sponges, jellyfish, crustaceans, and seagrass, sea turtles help to keep marine ecosystems balanced. They are also bellwethers of the ocean's health, and their diminishing populations point to growing threats to the ocean.

Says Mast, "The same hazards that threaten sea turtles also threaten thousands of other species of ocean wildlife and entire ecosystems. As we eradicate threats to sea turtles and ensure their survival, we are helping to ensure the survival of the ocean as a whole."

In addition to the feature map and articles about worldwide leatherback nesting sites, SWoT Report covers topics such as:

• The genetically defined populations of leatherback sea turtles around the world, including never-before-seen maps, as researched and written by Dr. Peter Dutton of NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center.
• How Costa Rica's sea turtle conservationists have helped to form entire marine protected areas.
• How the foods we choose to eat either help or hinder the survival of sea turtles and other ocean wildlife.
• What some fishers are doing to help protect sea turtles in their everyday work.

For more information about sea turtles and to read SWoT Report, visit SWoT's new website at:   www.SeaTurtleStatus.org