{"id":12332,"date":"2020-03-31T20:36:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T20:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=12332"},"modified":"2020-06-19T01:26:03","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T01:26:03","slug":"wespac-renewed-effort-to-delist-threatened-sea-turtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=12332","title":{"rendered":"Wespac: Renewed Effort To Delist Threatened Sea Turtles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Green turtle nests on Tern Island in 2019 season. Pink dots indicate successfully deposited nests. Black dots indicate hatch craters and emergence of at least some hatchlings. Credit: Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Hawai\u2018i population of green sea turtles is federally listed as threatened and in 2018, Hurricane Walaka destroyed much of the turtles\u2019 preferred nesting habitat in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). But according to T. Todd Jones of the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, they have since shown how adaptable they can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones told the council last month that nesting on East Island, one of the main turtle nesting islands at French Frigate Shoals (FFS), is likely no longer viable, because it is now inundated by waves and tides after being decimated by Walaka. However, he said, the turtles have shifted some of their nesting to Tern Island, also at FFS. (See our January 2020 Board Talk<\/a> item for more on this.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as we reported in January, the habitat at Tern is not great. A map Jones presented of all the nests that were deposited at Tern last year showed that hatchlings emerged from only a fraction of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help determine where else the turtles might be nesting, Jones said his agency is training monk seal researchers how to observe and tag green sea turtles throughout the NWHI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we are most likely seeing in real time is the intrinsic mapping capability of female turtles. In 2019, 2020, 2021, you will have returning females and new females that have no prior knowledge of what happened at East,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, turtles used to bask on one island and nest on another. \u201cIntrinsically, the animals had a map of French Frigate Shoals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that most of the turtles used to forage in Main Hawaiian Islands and nest\u00a0in the NWHI, but more are now staying in the north full-time. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing their plasticity in their ability to use multiple islands [and] use nesting resources up and down the chain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the challenges the turtles are facing in the NWHI, council executive director Kitty Simonds \u2014 who drove the development of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs\u2019 2012 petition to delist the turtle \u2014 asked NMFS\u2019s Mike Tosatto what his agency was doing to improve the turtles\u2019 population so that it can be delisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously, I\u2019m interested in the green sea turtles. … In terms of the recovery, any different kinds of things going on in terms of being able to take it off the threatened list?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, NMFS broke up the then-threatened green sea turtle population into 11 distinct population segments, or DPSs. The Hawai\u2018i DPS remained threatened, while those for American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands were uplisted to endangered. Tosatto informed Simonds that NMFS has not written a new recovery plan for the DPSs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecovery criteria might not necessarily be broken up into 11 pieces yet. No, we don\u2019t have criteria for delisting yet,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re going to be working toward criteria for delisting threatened species?\u201d she pressed. \u201cIt\u2019s my understanding that our Hawaiian green sea turtle was not removed because of climate change and turtles drowning in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. … Interested parties will be investigating how to go about removing it from the threatened list, and we\u2019re interested in cultural takes, as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(In 2014, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration directed the council to investigate the extent to which federal grant funds were misused by council staff involved in preparing the 2012 delisting petition.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Teresa Dawson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hawai‘i population of green sea turtles is federally listed as threatened and in 2018, Hurricane Walaka destroyed much of the turtles’ preferred nesting habitat in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). But according to T. Todd Jones of the Pacific Islands Fisheries … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[467,26,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2020","category-endangered-species","category-fisheries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}