Coastside water protected for prehistoric turtles
New designation protects feeding grounds
Lily Bixler
Half Moon Bay Review
01/26/2012
Their bodies could fill the back of a pickup truck and their heads are the size of a basketballs. When an endangered Pacific Leatherback sea turtle turns up near sportfishing boat Huli Cat a few times a year, owner Tom Mattusch says their presence is "take-your-breath-away inspiring."
"They're oblivious and don't care about the boat," he said. "They go about their thing."
There was good news last week for the prehistoric reptile. San Mateo County coast is part of a stretch of roughly 42,000 square miles of critical feeding area for leatherbacks that's been granted new federal protection. Though a step in the right direction, the designation falls short of the 70,000 square miles environmentalists intended to cover the turtles' full migration route.
Now protected under the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration protected area, the new designation establishes a habitat along the West Coast where leatherbacks feed on jellyfish after their 6,000-mile swim from their nests in Indonesia.
Leatherbacks are the largest of all sea turtles and can grow up to nine feet long and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Since the 1980s, they have declined in population by 95 percent. They were around when dinosaurs roamed and have survived for 100 million years, mostly unchanged.
Leatherbacks are generally found off the West Coast in the summer and fall. The turtles are known to come in close to the shore, even around recreational activities on the coast.
Catherine Kilduff, of San Francisco's Center for Biological Diversity. explained how habitat protection is vital to the survival of leatherbacks.
"We urgently need migration safeguards for these ancient animals as they make the longest, most epic journey of any creature on the planet to get to our West Coast every year," Kilduff says in a prepared release.
