Sea turtles also consume plastics and marine debris which are harmful to their digestive systems. Thousands of chemicals contaminate the marine environment, many of which accumulate in the tissues of sea turtles, affecting their locomotion, brain functioning and reproductive success. This means that even people living in the middle of the European Union can have an impact on the health of the oceans and sea turtles. The pollution sources range from wastewater discharge released by cruise liners to fishing nets that are lost by fishermen to fertilizer runoff that comes down rivers from farms. Solid waste, chemicals and pollutants from human activities enter the ocean, causing injury, illness and even death to sea turtles. This is a lower chance for survival due to dehydration, exhaustion, predators and automobiles. After emerging from their nests at night, newborn hatchlings find their way from nest to sea using the light of the moon.Īrtificial lighting, such as street lamps and hotel room lights, confuses these hatchlings, sending them landward in the wrong direction. With the encroachment of hotels, parking lots and housing along nesting beaches, female turtles are forced to use suboptimal nesting habitats. These threats include coastal development, pollution, direct harvest, invasive species and vessel strikes. With changes in ocean circulation, sea turtles may have to alter their movements and possibly shift their range and nesting timing.Īlong with fishing gear and climate change, there are numerous human activity threats to sea turtles. Even a small rise in sea level could result in a large loss of beach nesting habitats.Ĭlimate change is altering ocean currents, which are the highways that sea turtles use for migration. Sea level rise for the end of the 21st century range from 0.18 to 0.59 meters. will become ultra-biased towards female populations if temperatures increase by even 1 C.Īs climate change melts ice and warms the oceans, sea levels rise. One study concluded that it is likely that southern populations of turtles in the U.S. Higher temperatures cause the sand to heat up and lead to a higher proportion of female to male hatchlings. Climate change can cause increased temperature. The sex of sea turtle hatchlings is influenced by the temperature of the sand in which the eggs develop. Often severe storms could increase the chance that sea turtle nests will flood, decreasing nesting success rates. More severe storms, such as hurricanes and tropical cyclones, could increase beach erosion rates, endangering sea turtle nesting habitat. The following effects of climate change will have critical implications for sea turtles:
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