Loggerheads may get new status

The beloved loggerhead turtle appears likely to get a little more breathing room.

Federal environmental agencies on Wednesday said the huge sea turtle qualifies as an endangered species across most of its range. That includes the Atlantic Ocean off the Southeast, where the turtle has been considered threatened but not endangered.

If approved, the change would create "critical habitats" for the turtle, where activities such as fishing, oil drilling or even beach-going could face tougher restrictions.

The agencies' determination now goes to public comment through June, before a final designation is announced.

The decision comes as something of a surprise in this region, which has led the nation in conservation efforts, such as turtle-excluder devices in commercial fish nets and resident "turtle watch" patrols that guard the beach nests.

The loggerhead is a long-lived sea turtle that grows to the size of a kitchen table and crawls ashore in the spring and summer to lay eggs in the dunes. It has become one of those totems of the coast, each year drawing an army of watch volunteers and crowds of people when a turtle is spotted or a rehabilitated injured turtle is released.

Nobody really knows how many loggerheads are out there; they spend nearly all their lives in sea. They are prolific enough that a few thousand females nest each summer in South Carolina alone, but nest numbers vary dramatically year to year.

Overall, nests have been declining at what observers have said is an alarming rate in some places, including a 40 percent decline in Florida. In South Carolina, the decline is about 3 percent.

On the heels of a federal review three years ago that kept the loggerhead's protected status here as a threatened species, environmental advocates Oceana and the Center for Biodiversity petitioned for the status change, because of the nesting decline.

Some marine biologists, though, said the endangered status might not be warranted.

Turtles take 25 to 35 years to mature enough to nest, and the nest numbers don't show yet what effect recent conservation efforts, such as the excluder devices or beach patrols, have had.

In this region, the turtles have relatively good protection on the beach, but much less offshore, said Elizabeth Griffin, Oceana marine wildlife scientist. Oceana would like to see more protection in deep-water foraging areas and in shallow water near beaches during the summer nesting season.

But even on the beach, development issues plague nests. Bev Ballow, of the Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island turtle watch groups, said patrols have to deal constantly with issues such as nest intrusion, erosion and pollution.

"There's just too much," she said. "We'll just have to see what effect the (proposed new status) is going to have."

The conservation efforts in this region should be working, but while the efforts have been put in place, development pressure on the coast has been growing, said Kelly Thorvalson, South Carolina Aquarium turtle rescue coordinator.

"Only good things can come from taking a closer look and designating critical habitats," she said. "Critical habitats will help assure the survival of this species. If we don't do it now, we may not have sea turtles in the future."