Sea turtles are endangered primarily due to human activities and environmental changes. The main reasons for their endangerment include:
- Fisheries bycatch: Sea turtles often get accidentally caught in fishing gear such as longlines, gill nets, and trawls, leading to injury or death.
- Direct take: They and their eggs are hunted for food, oil, leather, and shell products.
- Coastal development: Habitat destruction on nesting beaches and feeding grounds from construction, dredging, and boat traffic threatens their survival.
- Pollution: Ingestion of plastics, entanglement in fishing debris, chemical pollutants, and light pollution harm sea turtles and disrupt their nesting behaviors.
- Climate change: Rising temperatures affect the sex ratios of hatchlings, erode nesting beaches, cause habitat loss, increase disease vulnerability, and alter migration patterns.
These combined threats have led to six of the seven sea turtle species being classified as threatened or endangered worldwide.
