Mexico City, Jun 4 (EFE).- Though the situation of sea turtles has improved over the years, they remain catalogued as in danger of extinction and suffering exploitation by humans, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) announced Monday.
In a bulletin from the institution, the researcher of the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology (ICML), Alberto Abreu Grobois, said that while progress has been made globally and particularly in Mexico, some sea turtles are still endangered.
Various species of sea turtles migrate to Mexico’s coastline, such as the hawksbill, the olive ridley, the leatherback and the Galapagos green turtle.
They live in different habitats and all are not in the same state of preservation.
One case that exemplifies the punishment suffered by some populations of sea turtles is that of the leatherback, which is in a very threatened situation due to its interaction with high-seas fisheries and the intensive gathering, though illegal, of its eggs on Mexican beaches.
“Their condition is worrying both worldwide and regionally,” the specialist in genetics and conservation of sea turtles said.
To the contrary, the olive ridley – which suffered a considerable decline in its population during the 1960s and ’70s due to the indiscriminate fishing which almost left it extinct – sees its population grow day by day and is now abundant in the Pacific Ocean and other parts of the world.
Another example of the partial success is the loggerhead sea turtle in the Atlantic, which goes to the Mexican coasts to nest.
Over the past three decades, its population has been in a situation of recovery, but cannot yet be considered completely recovered.
According to the specialist, sea turtles fulfill an environmental service by helping control the population of other organisms that they eat, like medusas and sponges.