Contact: Scott Smullen FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gene Nitta 3/14/96
The first comprehensive plans to help rebuild the population of endangered and threatened sea turtles in the U.S. Pacific are being unveiled by the Commerce Departmentþs National Marine Fisheries Service today. The proposed recovery plans are a joint effort between the fisheries service and the Interior Departmentþs Fish and Wildlife Service.
The proposed recovery plans will provide a coordinated management focus to protect and rebuild depleted U.S. Pacific populations of the loggerhead, olive ridley, leatherback, hawksbill and green sea turtles found in waters off Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Some of the sea turtles move between U.S. waters and those of Mexico and other nations.
Each plan identifies major actions that are needed to achieve recovery. These actions range from reducing incidental harvest to protection of nesting and foraging habitats. Because the sea turtles range between 5,000 Pacific islands and 3,000 miles of ocean, the recovery plans include jurisdictional overlap between nations, commonwealths and territories. Future coordinated management and recovery strategies will include socio-economic impacts.
The recovery plans are subdivided into U.S. jurisdictional areas of various commonwealths and territories so that local fisheries and resource managers can address issues within their respective regions more easily. The plans describe criteria to downlist a species and identify priority tasks that allow a framework for each respective region in the U.S. Pacific to coordinate and implement management programs to recover sea turtle populations.
To draft the recovery plans, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service formed a team of professional biologists with regional experience with marine turtles. The proposed plans incorporate nearly all the recommendations of the recovery team.
The fisheries service will take information and recommendations from all interested parties, including comments and suggestions from the public, other concerned governmental agencies, the scientific community, industry and others concerned with this proposed recovery plan area.
Requests for copies of the proposed recovery plans may be sent to the Chief, Endangered Species Division, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Written comments will be accepted at the same address through May 11, 1996.