Deeper Into Conservation

Conservation : the act of keeping free from depletion, decay or injury. Wise management or maintaining.

(Dermochelys coriacea)

The largest living turtle, the leatherback can reach a total length of 2.1 m with an average weight of 365 kg. Unlike other turtles, the leatherback has no visible shell; instead, it has a carapace made up of hundreds of irregular bony plates, covered with a leathery skin. This rare sea turtle lives in warm sea waters and is known to breed off the West Indies, Florida, the northeastern coasts of Central and South America, Senegal, Natal, Madagascar, Sri Lanka. They are now regionally extinct in Malaysia.

Status

IUCN: Critically Endangered
CITES: Appendix I
CMS listing: Appendix I and I

The leatherback turtle has survived for more than a hundred million years, but is now facing extinction. Recent estimates of numbers show that this species is declining precipitously throughout its range, particularly in the Pacific over the last twenty years: as few as 2,300 adult females now remain; making the Pacific leatherback the world's most endangered marine turtle population.

Although Atlantic populations are rather more stable, models predict that they, too, will decline due to the large numbers of adults being killed accidentally by fishing fleets. In the Atlantic, the fact that they are widely distributed during the migration process and that they do not dive very deep increase the risk of interaction of leatherback turtles with longline fisheries.

Why is this species important?

As the major jellyfish predator, the leatherback turtle provides natural ecological control of jellyfish populations. Overabundance of jellyfish may reduce fish populations because jellyfish will feed on fish larvae and reduce population growth of commercially important fish. Hence, the presence of leatherback turtles benefits fish, fisheries and people.

Biggest ever recorded: a male stranded on a Welsh beach, 256 cm long, 916 kg. A leatherback was recorded to have descended to a maximum depth of 1,230 metres, which represents the deepest dive ever recorded for a reptile.