Refuges Are Critical to Recovery of Sea Turtles
By Stacy Shelton, USFWS
National wildlife refuges are America’s promise to itself that there will always be places for wildlife in our midst.
Consider the critical importance of coastal refuges in the recovery of sea turtles. Roughly 30 percent of loggerhead sea turtle nests found in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are laid on national wildlife refuges.
A loggerhead on Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia returns to the Atlantic Ocean. (Photo: USFWS)
In Peninsular Florida, which has the greatest number of loggerhead sea turtle nests in the United States, about one-quarter are found on national wildlife refuges. Refuges in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama are also important nesting areas for loggerheads that are part of a small, but genetically different, population in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Refuges in U.S. territories in the Caribbean provide very important nesting habitat for leatherback and hawksbill sea turtles; in Hawaii, over 90 percent of green turtle nesting occurs on refuge beaches.
In this Q&A, Sandy MacPherson, the national sea turtle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1998, and the Southeast sea turtle coordinator from 1994 to 1998, talks about conserving sea turtles.