The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has implemented measures to safeguard sea turtles and other marine animals by prohibiting the hunting of turtles callecting their eggs, and trading their meat and products. These regulations, outlined in Article 61 of the Fishing, Investment, and Preservation of Live Aquatic Resources within Territorial Water regulations, demonstrate the country's commitment to marine conservation and biodiversity preservation. By enacting these protective measures, Saudi Arabia aims to ensure the long-term sustainability of its marine ecosystems and the species that inhabit them.
THREATS
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Pollution (plastic)
Sea turtle populations face a significant threat from anthropogenic debris, encompassing both large plastic items (macroplastics) and tiny plastic fragments (microplastics). Due to their specific feeding strategies and reliance on visual cues, sea turtles often mistake plastic pollutants for prey, leading to ingestion of marine debris causing intestinal blockages and injuries. These internal blockages and injuries can cause infections, malnutrition, starvation, buoyancy disorders and death. Entanglement in plastic debris can also restrict movement, hinder foraging ability, and can inflict debilitating injuries. Compounding the threat of plastic pollution, air pollution from coastal development projects also presents a challenge for nesting sea turtles in the Red Sea. Cement dust, a common byproduct of such development, settles on nesting beaches and alters the sand composition. This can result in a hardened surface that impedes female sea turtles from digging suitable nesting chambers for their eggs. Likewise, the hardened sand can make it difficult for hatchlings to crawl out of their nest.
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Coastal Development (lighting)
Coastal development in the Red Sea and around the world poses a complex threat to sea turtles. Coastal development directly eliminates critical nesting beaches, restricting nesting success and the long-term health of a population. With fewer nesting sites available for future generations, population viability is at risk. Coastal development can also disrupt essential foraging feeding grounds through habitat modification, pollution and vessel traffic, ultimately impacting the health and long-term viability of sea turtle populations. Artificial lighting associated with coastal development disrupts the natural orientation behaviors and cues for both nesting females and hatchling sea turtles. Both nesting females and hatchlings rely on a natural behavior called lunar orientation, whereby they orient toward and navigate by the moon's reflection on the water's surface. Artificial light sources can disrupt their sea finding behavior back to the sea leading to disorientation or mis-orientation. Disoriented or mis-oriented sea turtles (adults and hatchlings) often become exhausted, dehydrated and may eventually die, as well as being more vulnerable to predation and entrapment.
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Feral Animals and Invasive Species Feeding on Eggs
Globally, predation by a diverse range of animals threatens sea turtle populations. Freshly laid or incubating eggs are easy prey for opportunistic predators. These include mammals like foxes, resident beach dwellers such as birds and crabs, and even invasive species. This predation significantly reduces hatching success, jeopardizing the long-term health of sea turtle populations. Coastal development makes the situation worse by adding to the threat of predation. When people build homes near the coast, they bring along pets like cats and dogs. These pets join the other predators already in the area, upsetting the natural balance. With more predators around, it becomes harder for sea turtle nests to survive, and fewer hatchlings make it to the ocean.
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Global warming
Rising global temperatures pose a significant threat to the long-term sustainability of sea turtle populations around the world. As reptiles, the sex of sea turtle hatchlings is determined by environmental factors, a phenomenon known as environmental sex determination. The temperature of the incubating eggs plays a crucial role in this process. Warmer sand temperatures - a consequence of rising global temperatures - favor the development of female hatchlings. This outcome can skew the natural sex ratio towards females, potentially leading to population decline through a reduction in reproductive output. A female-biased sex ratio disrupts the delicate balance within ecosystems, potentially impacting predator-prey dynamics and overall community structure.
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Bycatch / Overfishing
Unintentional capture of non-target species, called bycatch, presents a significant threat to sea turtle populations globally and within the Red Sea. Due to their feeding and migratory behavior, sea turtles are particularly vulnerable to entanglement in gillnets, longlines, and trawls employed in various fisheries. The inability to escape from these constricting fishing gear often leads to direct mortality through drowning or subsequent predation. Furthermore, injuries sustained during bycatch events can compromise the fitness of individual sea turtles, impacting their ability to reproduce and survive
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Other human interventions
Beyond widely recognized large-scale threats, sea turtles face a complex mix of human caused dangers. Prior to international recognition of their endangered status in the 1970s, legal harvesting of sea turtle meat for human consumption occurred globally. While hunting for sea turtle meat and egg collection persist as cultural practices in specific regions, these activities can be conducted sustainably under appropriate regulations to minimize population impacts. However, illegal and unsustainable harvesting, exceeding cultural needs, threatens the stability of sea turtle populations. The extent of such practices varies globally, and may be done unintentionally.