Leatherback turtle - Threats

Too few individuals left, too many threats

Like other marine turtles species, leatherbacks are threatened by egg collection, harvesting of adults for meat, disturbance at nesting beaches, and incidental mortality (bycatch) by fishing fleets. A combination of these threats has caused the leatherback to be listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List.

Direct take
The eggs are traditionally collected, especially in Asia, and it is this practice above all which probably brought about the worldwide decline of the species.

A paper published in 1983 stated that almost 100% of leatherback eggs in Thailand were poached, while in some areas the egg harvest and illegal poaching has removed more than 95% of the clutches, and this has been recognized as the main cause (together with fisheries mortalities and poor hatcheries practices) for the collapse in the Malaysia population. By now, there are few large populations from which eggs could be collected in the western Pacific.

In parts of Latin America, turtle eggs are considered to be aphrodisiacs and there is heavy demand for them: in 1983, almost 100% of nesting females in the Dominican Republic were harvested by local people.

Leatherback turtles are killed in some places for their meat and ovaries, although in most countries only their eggs are consumed.

The species' flesh is very oily and not in great demand, but local and subsistence killing of these animals still occurs in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific.

Indirect take
In the 1990s, about 1,500 mature female leatherbacks per year were estimated to have been killed in longline and gillnet fisheries in the Pacific.

Their feeding habits make leatherbacks vulnerable to fishing vessels using longlines for tuna, swordfish and sharks, because these fish congregate along oceanic fronts and in areas of upwelling, where leatherbacks' favourite food, jellyfish and other plankton, is also most abundant. As a result leatherbacks are frequently caught as bycatch.
Find out more about bycatch

Pollution
Oceanic pollution by plastics is another cause of mortality. Phthalates, a chemical compound derived from plastics, have been found in leatherback egg yolk. Leatherback turtles sometimes mistake plastic bags for their favourite food of jellyfish, ingest the plastic bag and then suffocate.
Find out more about pollution