Loggerhead
Turtle
Meet the Loggerhead Turtle
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The loggerhead compared to all other sea turtles have the largest list of food (Marine Turtles of Australia: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
These beautiful and intelligent creatures have been around for over one hundred years, even predating dinosaurs, and yes, people too! They existed and thrived peacefully, and yet today, all seven species of sea turtles are endangered. The Loggerhead Turtle, scientifically known as Carette carette, is one of the largest hard-shelled marine turtles in the world. They are named for their large heads and strong jaws used to crush shellfish and crustaceans (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015). While some people believe turtles have intrinsic value, they have a right to be alive, they also benefit ecosystems and that means they benefit humans too! Their extinction threatens the existence of their unique role in the ecosystem or their niche, but if we can take the time to conserve our turtles they can thrive again (General Information). Humans are the primary cause of loggerhead extinction so it’s our job to save them.
It's vital for you to understand not only the aesthetic value of these beautiful creatures, but why they are so important in their environments and ours. Loggerhead turtles are known as a keystone species, which means that the health and sustainability of the environment, even the climate is dependent on the health of the Loggerhead turtle population. This means that they have a huge instrumental value to humans, and even help to maintain the economy through the fishing industry. Sea turtles are part of two ecosystems, the beach/dune system and the marine system (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015). If sea turtles went extinct, it would be a disaster, both the marine and the beach/dune ecosystems would be devastated.
They Are Needed Everyday in Their Ecosystem
Conservation and monitoring of their population is very difficult because the Loggerheads have vast migrations and a world wide impact (Loggerhead Turtle. NOAA Fisheries, 2015). We don't have anything to compare what data can be gathered to, because we dont know their background extinction rate. They have existed so much longer than humans that we don't know what they were like before we started changing the environment.
FUN FACTS
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Sea turtles can move through the water at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour! (Loggerhead Sea Turtle. National Geographic, 2015)
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The average length of dives is 15–30 minutes, but they can stay underwater for up to four hours! (Loggerhead Sea Turtle. National Geographic, 2015)
Turtles are generalists, they don't suffer from lack of food because they have evolved to live all over the ocean and are omnivores. Loggerhead turtles range from spending time in the open ocean to estuaries in both warm and frigid waters making them one of the most versatile marine species! (Loggerhead Sea Turtle. National Geographic, 2015). Coral reefs, rocky places, and shipwrecks draw large amounts of marine life and are great feeding areas (Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
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Pacific Loggerheads migrate over 7,500 miles between nesting beaches and feeding grounds! (Loggerhead Turtle. NOAA Fisheries, 2015)
Turtles Have Many Homes
The Loggerhead turtles are instrumental in maintaining these ecosystems so they can be accessed by all kinds of other species including humans. They maintain habitats such as seagrass beds, coral reefs, and beach dunes, where they contribute to functional diversity and allowing the ecosystem to carry out all of its natural processes. The turtles recycle essential nutrients and keep ocean beds and floor sediments in complete balance (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
Turtles even help help the climate by maintaining coral reefs. By eating sponges off the reefs they allow the reefs to breath and one of the functions of a reef is that is it can regulate carbon dioxide that helps to maintain the climate. Unfortunately this is a positive feedback loop, which means that the less turtles that survive the worse climate change will become and the less turtles there will be (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
They maintain a balanced food web by eating jellyfish, today swelling jellyfish populations can be seen all over the world due to the loss of sea turtles, which used to maintain a species evenness, increasing biodiversity. The jellyfish are filling in the empty niches that have been abandoned due to extinction. This is causing a huge problem for fishermen and economies that rely on the jelly fish populations staying low and biodiversity so that they can access the amazing capital that ocean ecosystems wield (Wilson, 2015).
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Loggerhead sea turtles also carry numerous colonies of small animals and plants on their shells, this is called mutualism. As many as 100 species of animals and plants have been recorded living on one single loggerhead turtle! (Loggerhead Turtle Facts)
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Turtles help to control the seagrass populations; they are actually one of the very few animals to eat sea grass, which like normal grass needs to be cut to stay healthy (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
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Every turtle can lay over 400 eggs, but only 1 in 1,000 hatchlings will survive to adulthood, this population trend is called early loss (Baby Sea Turtles).
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Foxes and dogs wreak havoc and destroy hundreds of nests, in some places up to 95% of all clutches laid were destroyed by foxes (Caretta caretta, 2015).
Have you ever noticed there isn’t a lot of vegetation around the beach?
That’s because dunes have very low nutrients levels. It’s important that dune vegetation is able to grow and become stronger with the presence of nutrients from turtles. Female turtles lay thousands of eggs on the beaches bringing nutrients from left over turtle eggs and dead turtles. Even in death they are contributing to the environment. They also have specific nesting requirements so the more beaches are destroyed the harder it will be to recover them. Turtle loss could lead to large amounts of erosion and the loss of a habitat that humans cherish. The idea of bequest value is to protect nature for future generations, and you don't have to be a biophiliac, can you imagine not having a single beach? If not, it's important to conserve the turtles and everything they maintain so they can protects us (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
Reasons for Endangerment are Ultimately Caused by Humans
They are affected by all types of changes in the climate, which sadly is exactly what humans have been creating. Changing temperatures and weather are going to have both direct impacts on Loggerhead turtles, as well as indirect effects through their critical habitats. Many scientists are concerned that rising global temperatures will result in warmer sand, causing more female than male baby turtles, this is due to a phenomenon called the pivotal temperature that influences the sex of the hatchlings (Baby Sea Turtles). But if they don’t have a beach to nest on none of that even matters. Rising sea levels and an increase in the frequency and intensity of storms will create erosion of nesting beaches and dunes (Caretta caretta, 2015).
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Changes in ocean circulation patterns can also alter marine food webs that are vital to all ecosystems. The changes could throw the whole system off! (Caretta caretta, 2015)
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Did you know that climate change has been linked to seismic activity? Nature wields amazing power, melting glaciers can actually cause shitting of tectonic plates! The movement can affect the Loggerheads foraging, inter-nesting and mating behavior (Caretta caretta, 2015).
⇒⇒ All of this really means that the long life span, maturation and reproductive times of Loggerhead turtles makes it very hard for them to adapt to changes in environmental conditions, and make fast population recoveries.
Its Very Hard for Them to Recover Quickly
Loggerheads have a low biotic potential, which is composed of several factors such as what part of life they begin reproduction, the rate at which they reproduce, the gestation period, and the number of hatchlings that make it to adulthood. Turtles have a population trend of early loss, which means that sadly a lot of turtles die before they have the chance to finish growing. Turtles are also technically r-strategists so they don't follow a carrying capacity trend, but they can be seen as both R and K strategists. Like k-strategists they have long lives however they also reproduce large numbers of unnurtured offspring, males are more like r-strategists and females are more like k-strategists (Horning, Markus).
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A healthy Loggerhead turtle can live over 50 years old in the wild! (Loggerhead Sea Turtle. National Geographic, 2015)
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Loggerhead nests have dropped markedly since 2000—when almost 20,000 nests were dug, to last year's with approximately 8,000 (Information About Sea Turtles: Loggerhead Sea Turtle, 2015).
Why Should We Save Them?
It might be hard for people to want to protect turtles, because they spend up to 85% of their day submerged most people never see one, but it's surprising how interconnected the earth is (Loggerhead Sea Turtle. National Geographic, 2015). Loggerhead turtles are incredibly important in their ecosystem roles, but they are also truly beautiful. You can see from pictures that these animals have aesthetic value, which leads to ecotourism. The consequences if they were to go extinct would be devastating so it's important to make efforts to help conserve the loggerhead turtle with an understanding of their role in our world.
There is every reason why these turtles should be saved, now you just have to make a difference.