Help Protect the Hawksbill Sea Turtles

What does Biodiversity and marine biodiversity mean?

Biodiversity means life on land or in the water. All the life in the world. Likewise marine biodiversity means life under, in the oceans and seas. 

Why is marine biodiversity important?

Marine Biodiversity is important because we need food sources from them. Marine Biodiversity can prevent one species’ extinction from causing more negative stuff to happen to the marine ecosystem. It’s important to New Zealand because New Zealand is surrounded by water, and it has lots and lots of important and special species. 

Hawksbill Sea Turtles

One of the endangered species in New Zealand are the Hawksbill Turtles. They are endangered. There are only 8,000 turtles left and they live on the upper North Island. Hawksbill Turtles are named for their unique beak-like mouth, which is like the beak of a hawk. The Hawksbill Sea Turtle is listed as Endangered within the United States due to habitat reduction and adults being captured for illegal animal trading or eating plastic thinking it’s a jellyfish. Throughout the world they’re considered to be Critically Endangered and at risk of extinction. 

 

Why are the Hawksbill turtles endangered?

They are endangered because of the illegal wildlife trade and the loss of their habitats. They also face threats from excessive hunting, fishery bycatch, coastal development and marine pollution.  (Source: treehugger.com)

 

Hawksbill sea turtles have several predators, including:

• Humans
• Sharks, including tiger sharks and requiem sharks.
• Estuarine crocodiles
• Octopuses, including the common octopus.
• Some pelagic fish species
•  They are especially targeted for their eggs, meat, and shells, which are valued in the illegal wildlife trade. (Source: nationalgeographic.com)

 Hawksbill turtles are also susceptible to entanglement in gill nets and fishing hooks. (Source: nationalgeographic.com)

Hawksbill Turtles continue to be harvested illegally for their eggs and meat. But mainly for their beautifully patterned shells. The shells, which are mostly being carved into combs, jewellery, and other trinkets, have been popular since the time of Julius Caesar over 2,000 years ago. It is illegal.

The shells make them targets for poachers that sell the jewellery and other products.

Even today, just a couple pounds of raw shell can attract prices of more than $1,000 in Japan. Hawksbill meat is consumed less regularly than that of other sea turtle species because the meat may contain toxins that can be lethal to humans.

A 2019 study in the journal Science Advances found that 9 million Hawksbill Turtles were hunted for their shells in 148 years between 1844 and 1992, over six times that of previous estimates. In 2021, a report issued by WWF, TRAFFIC, and Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund revealed that Japan customs catches over 1,240 pounds of Hawksbill tortoise shell over 71 incidents between 2000 and 2019, representing about 530 individual turtles. Hawksbills are routinely caught in nets of large-scale fishing operations accidentally, especially since they tend to dwell near coral reefs abundant with fish. Despite a nearly exclusive lifetime spent in the ocean, these animals still need oxygen to breathe and can often drown if they can't reach the surface in time after becoming entangled.

(Source: treehugger.com) 

As female sea turtles return to nest on the same beaches across multiple decades to breed, sea-level rises could lead many to nest on flooded beaches, potentially reducing the number of turtles hatching.

(Source: theconversation.com)

 Fishermans sometimes use longline fishing to fish mainly tuna, but sometimes they catch some innocent fishes that are not tuna, and even drag turtles or seagulls in, drowning them.

We Must Help Those Poor Little Turtles, but How?...

We can help those poor little turtles from dying by NOT using fishing gear which can result in drowning or cause injuries that lead to death or debilitation. (For example, swallowing hooks, flipper entanglement or longline fishing). 

(Source: noaa.gov)

  We can also NOT destroy, damage their habitats and their food web. We can do some beach cleaning and pick up rubbish. You can make a difference by also giving donations to charity that helps them, feeds them and adopts them. 

(Click Here to help and learn about hawksbill sea turtles.) 

(Source: worldwildlife.org)

Hawksbill sea turtles are very special and rare since there are only 8,000 left. We must stop hunting, killing them for ourselves or for money, or even just a little tiny winy piece of plastic and rubbish can cause marine pollution or a confusion for the turtles, they might eat it and that can cause them to die. We must start to protect them from being extinct and to see them more often in New Zealand’s waters.

By Ning Chang