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Green sea turtle conservation: How one species' recovery gives hope amid a sea of decline · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Not every story about endangered species ends in tragedy.
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  The green sea turtle once on the brink of collapse has rebounded thanks to
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  decades of protection and conservation, but while the turtle shows us what's
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  possible, the latest IUCN red list update warns that Arctic seals and
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  more than half of the world's birds are sliding deeper into trouble.
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  The question is, will we let our most vulnerable species fade away?
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  Or will we choose to follow the turtle's example of recovery?
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  That's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
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  and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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  And on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about species
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  that were endangered, just like the green sea turtle.
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  But first I wanna talk about something that I remember every time I talk about
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  sea turtles, and that's the time where my daughter, who is now 16 years old, I
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  can't even believe that, but when she was nine months old, 10 months old, we went
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  to Florida as a family and you know, she's younger so she was in a crib beside we
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  go to a hotel and was in all in one room.
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  So my older daughter was sleeping, she was about two.
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  My wife was sleeping and my youngest daughter got up.
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  Right.
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  So she was, you know, 10 months old.
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  She gets up, it's around six o'clock in the morning.
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  It's a little early.
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  I want my wife and my other daughter to sleep.
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  So I take her down and I go downstairs.
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  I get her ready.
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  We go downstairs, we go to the beach, and we watch the sunrise together.
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  A nice little moment between my daughter and I looking at nature.
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  She's having a great time.
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  We're running around on the beach before the beach sand gets
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  too hot, and we just sit there.
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  I put her on my lap and we watch the sunrise as we see the sunrise,
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  what was revealed in front of us was unreal.
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  It was this mound of sand and I knew exactly what it was when I first saw it.
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  I started to tell Jade, my youngest daughter.
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  I was like, Hey, look at this mound.
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  And she thought it was like a little sandcastle, but I'm like, no, it's
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  not a sandcastle, it's this mound.
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  It's a sea turtles.
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  There are sea turtle eggs underneath this mound.
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  And when I looked up and we got up and we didn't go near it.
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  We stayed our distance 'cause you're not supposed to go near a
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  mound like that, a sea turtle nest.
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  But we looked at the tracks going up and down.
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  Like up to the mount and then back down to the ocean.
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  It was like perfect unison.
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  It was like straight line.
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  It was actually quite beautiful as we see the sunrise.
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  So I go upstairs after the sunrise and we actually, we go to the lobby first.
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  We tell 'em that there's a sea turtle nest where that's right there and
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  that we got to share that opportunity.
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  And they called Fish and Wildlife, US Fish and Wildlife.
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  This is in Florida.
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  And they kind of marked it off 'cause it was a public beach and they
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  didn't want anybody to step on it.
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  They didn't anybody, anybody to ruin it.
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  So I tell my oldest daughter who's like now going to university
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  in her first year university
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  for wildlife and conservation, which is awesome , wildlife
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  biology and conservation program.
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  She comes down and I tell her what I saw and we show her what we saw.
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  And so she's going around like there's a barricade around the mount
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  and she's going around the mount picking up any type of garbage.
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  And she's like, dad, can we pick this up deck?
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  Can we pick this up?
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  Can we pick this up?
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  So we're picking it up.
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  We're putting it in the garbage.
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  I wouldn't let my daughter touch the garbage because, you know.
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  2-year-old dirty hands, we don't want that.
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  But anyway, so we shared that experience, taking care of these sea turtles she
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  was asking questions and both of them, they were really, really interested in.
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  Now, of course, my 10 month old, she probably kind of forgot about it, but
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  we got to share that experience and that was like this personal thing.
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  This was, you know, almost 16 years ago.
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  At that moment where these sea turtles.
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  You know, I didn't know what species it was, but these sea turtles, like
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  green sea turtles come on that beach.
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  And you start to think they may not be here one day.
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  They're endangered of going extinct, like all seven species at one point.
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  Were endangered of going extinct.
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  There are a lot of people who are doing some phenomenal work.
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  In conservation and research and tagging to find out where these turtles
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  go, making sure they're protected at every point in their journey.
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  There are a lot of laws to protect these sea turtles, and it was just
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  wonderful to see this experience that we've had and now, like 16 years later
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  to see that the populations of one of the species has rebounded and now
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  they're getting delisted as endangered and going to least vulnerable, which
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  is great, which is great news.
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  Now of course it comes with some caveats.
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  When you start to de-list in specific areas like countries.
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  I remember telling like a species at risk biologist when I worked
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  for the government in Canada.
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  They were saying, Hey.
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  Yeah.
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  One thing you have to be careful when you delist a species is that there
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  are certain laws or certain reports and monitoring that also go with that.
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  So, you know, when you're an endangered species on the species at risk list or
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  an endangered species list in a specific country, there are specific protections
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  that go with it, but there's also things that you have to do to report on it.
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  You have to evaluate the population.
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  You have to come up with recovery plans.
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  You have to monitor the species, you have to do all these things.
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  There's extra money that goes into doing the research to doing projects and to make
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  sure that it's conserved and make sure the area around it is protected as long
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  as the governments don't strip that away.
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  And we saw that with the manatees, right?
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  The manatees back in the 1950s, 1960s, went down to about 600 manatees in
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  Florida, and then they rebounded over like three or four decades because there
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  were all these, you know, recovery plans and monitoring plans, and they went up
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  to about just over 6,000 individuals.
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  Well now they got delisted.
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  There's less monitoring plans and less focus on their protection.
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  And the water quality has kind of gone to hell in Florida.
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  And so we're seeing less.
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  Seagrasses.
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  And what do these manes eat?
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  They eat seagrasses, and so we're starting to see less manes, a lot
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  of die offs, a lot of bad water quality that had like acute die offs.
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  So like right away they died off for a number of different individuals, not
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  only manes, but dolphins and sharks and fish and all that kind of stuff.
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  So we have some problems with the manes now, and it's probably gonna
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  have to go back on the list, but once you take 'em off the list, it's
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  really hard to put back on the list.
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  so scientists and managers make sure that when a species is listed
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  as endangered, it's very difficult to take them off because it's
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  very difficult to put 'em back on.
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  So they make sure that if they're delisted.
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  It's fine.
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  In the case of the manes, that was more of a political thing that
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  happened, which, you know, scientists were already concerned about.
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  And so now we're in a problem with manatees decreasing in population
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  because of bad water quality, less seagrass and so forth.
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  And that's a big problem, but.
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  We saw a recovery in this population of green sea turtles or in the
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  species of green sea turtles in specific areas, which is great to see.
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  So happy to see that that's happening.
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  And now we move on to the bad news where we saw seals and climate
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  pressure that have taken a hit.
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  So harp hooded and bearded seals in the arctic have moved
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  into higher risk categories.
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  So their survival depends on sea ice.
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  They need sea ice to rest.
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  They need sea ice to eat.
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  When the the ice sea ice is vanishing faster than we predicted
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  because of climate change, which I just talked in the last episode.
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  We were talking a bit more about coral reefs, but there's other
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  species like polar bears and seals in the Arctic that depend on sea ice.
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  When you don't have sea ice, you are at risk of dying more, and you have a risk
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  of not being able to survive, and so you end up losing populations, right?
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  Losing individuals and populations.
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  So you know when you have no ground beneath your paw and
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  you are an air breather and you're swimming the whole time.
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  At some point you have to rest.
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  That's why polar bears, although they can swim really long distances,
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  200, 400 kilometers, I think the longest was 700 kilometers.
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  They still need to rest.
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  They still need to rest on the ice.
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  And same with seals.
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  Their air breathers, they need to rest on the ice, maybe feed
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  on the ice or bask in the sun
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  just be able to rest.
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  If they can't do that on the sea ice 'cause it's not there floating
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  sea ice, then they will die.
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  That's really what happens.
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  They will drown and they will die.
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  And we're starting to see that more and more because there's less sea ice.
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  And we're seeing it with polar bears.
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  We're seeing it with other marine mammals, like, bearded harp
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  and hooded seals in the arctic.
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  That's happening.
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  And that's obviously not a good thing.
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  So more protection needs to be done there, but the protection needs to be like,
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  we need to keep this sea ice around.
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  Now, of course, let's move over to the birds Now, you know, 61% of
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  bird species globally are declining.
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  That's more than half 61%.
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  Basically the threats are deforestation.
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  So a lot of forests like Indonesia, Amazon, and Canada, like we're
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  starting to see a lot of deforestation.
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  Whether it's deforestation because of humans, direct humans, or indirect,
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  like climate change and wildfires.
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  We're starting to see a lot of deforestation.
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  Which we all know are habitats for a lot of the birds.
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  Agriculture is increasing, usually because of deforestation.
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  Invasive species are coming in and they're messing around with the food webs and the
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  available resources for these birds to not only be protected, but also to feed.
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  And then of course there's climate change.
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  Climate change is changing wind patterns It's making things hotter.
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  It's causing wildfires, which leads to deforestation.
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  It just makes everything worse.
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  And so when we start to see that it becomes worse.
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  Then you got like the human side of it.
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  Obviously I mentioned, deforestation, agriculture, invasive species, usually
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  by humans and human related activities.
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  But you also have like these migratory areas.
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  So birds migrate, a lot of birds migrate really long distances.
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  But during that migration, they need to stop over and rest and
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  feed to get the energy to continue on with their long migrations.
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  I'm gonna think in Canada because I'm in Canada, birds that migrate from the Arctic
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  all the way down to the south of like say the United States, or even in Mexico.
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  They have to stop over at certain areas and you know, they travel in
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  wind tunnels because it's easier to travel when the wind is at your
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  back and they land in those areas.
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  Well, when those areas are not available because of destruction practices or,
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  you know, development or maybe even sometimes renewable energy areas that are
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  impacted 'cause that's where the wind is.
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  So they'll put windmills in there.
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  That can impact a population if it's not designated in the right
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  spot or located in the right spot.
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  It becomes a big problem when we talk about migratory spaces.
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  So the lack of migratory stopovers, tropical burns, losing forest.
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  Like we are starting to see these areas be impacted and these birds be impacted.
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  And now we're down to 61% of birds species you know,
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  globally, that are declining.
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  Not a good thing, You have a great success story in the sea
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  turtles, like green sea turtles.
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  You have a declining story with harp hooded and bearded seals in the
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  Arctic because of lack of sea ice.
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  And then of course, 61% of species are declining globally . That's declining.
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  That's not a good story.
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  So although where you're gonna see a lot of highlights, you're gonna see a
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  lot of people's talk about how green sea turtles have been, you know, sort
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  of delisted to one category, which is great it is a testament to a lot of
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  people working really, really hard, putting a lot of money and effort into
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  those protections and making sure that the population has not only stabilized,
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  but it's gotten bigger, which is great.
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  We still have a lot of problems on this earth and so.
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  You know, looking at the new IUCN red list of endangered species
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  and how that's changed, that's great, but there's also been a lot
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  of impact on more species, right?
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  WWF Canada just released a report on a lot of the species within Canada that
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  have been declining, a majority of them.
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  So obviously that's not good.
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  So we're starting to see that.
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  And a lot of it is human inflicted.
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  A lot of it is because whether it's direct or indirect, it's loss of habitat,
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  loss of sea ice, loss of resources.
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  It's not really that great.
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  In Ontario on land, the government is taking away from anything on the
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  endangered species at risk list.
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  And on the province, they're actually taking away the protections
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  of the habitat of the species.
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  So normally when you protect the species, you wanna protect their habitat.
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  But no, they're not protecting the habitat.
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  They're protecting where they get their food, but they're not protecting
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  the habitat, where they live, where they nest, where they actually, you
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  know, sit and be comfortable and be safe from predators and so forth.
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  They don't wanna protect that.
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  They're actually trying to change that law if they've not, haven't done it already.
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  Governments that are changing these laws for development or changing
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  these laws for whatever reason of oil and gas development, whatever
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  that might be, we need to get those guys out of there, right?
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  We need to get those politicians out there.
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  We need to put politicians that are making sense of like, Hey, you know what?
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  We can actually be economically sound as well as environmentally sound
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  like those two can go hand in hand.
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  I think it's really important.
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  Climate change, habitat loss, exploitation of human driven problems, those are
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  things that we need to get in control.
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  And to get into control, you need to make sure that we are doing our part.
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  Go vote for environmentally focused politicians.
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  Make sure that when you speak to the candidates that come around
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  your area, be like, what are you doing for the environment?
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  What are you actually doing for the environment?
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  If they give you this bs, that climate change isn't here, or it's not true, or
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  it's being overblown in the proportion, start to look at some of these reports.
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  Show them some of these reports and be like, look, I'm seeing headlines all
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  the time and it's not leftist news or extremist news, these are environmental
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  reports by scientists who are paid to do the work that they do and understand
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  the trends in populations and so forth.
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  If they don't understand that, if they can't understand or they
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  try and spin it a different way, then that means they are corrupt.
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  That means they don't care about the environment.
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  You need to put in politicians that care about the environment,
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  care about the economy too, but care about the environment
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  for heaven's sake, like Christ.
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  Like we gotta be able to do something.
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  You're looking at declines as widespread, but recovery is possible, is something
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  that we really need to focus on.
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  You really need to understand that you, who's listening to
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  this, you're not powerless.
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  There's citizen science, there's policy advocacy.
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  There's supporting organizations who are working with like animals, like
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  green sea turtle populations and local communities that are actually doing
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  it right to say, Hey, you know what?
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  We want to increase the populations of these species 'cause we know
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  that they're declining quite rapidly and we want to help.
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  Those are the organizations that help those communities or help bolster
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  those populations in different ways by doing different studies, even
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  academically, in academia, like the researchers and this graduate students,
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  all the people who have put together ways to do restoration or make sure
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  that we're increasing restoration.
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  Like Project Seagrass, they're all good friends of mine, so I'm a
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  little biased when it comes to that.
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  But they've done a great thing to take a small organization and have a
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  big impact and bring people together.
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  Not to take credit for other people's work, but bring people together, identify
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  what's missing within sort of the research industry and be like, Hey, we can put
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  that together and we'll make sure we drive these types of projects as a collaborator.
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  And I think that's just really great to see organizations like that.
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  And we should be supporting organizations who do restoration,
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  focus on projects, focus on ways that we can collaborate with others.
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  Put on symposiums.
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  These are huge, huge things.
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  So like the greener sea turtle survival wasn't an accident The resurgent in
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  that survival wasn't an accident.
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  It was a choice.
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  It was a choice that we made to make sure, like as a collective.
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  Not only just me as a scientist who's speaking out for them, but as the people
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  who are on the ground, the people who are working with communities, those
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  communities that are making changes in their lives to make sure that they're
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  not poaching eggs and they're not eating sea turtle eggs or sea turtles.
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  And they're starting to use sea turtles as a way of driving ecotourism or as a way of
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  making sure that they're marine protected areas at certain times when sea turtles
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  are there and that nobody harms them.
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  They do their own sort of management enforcement and it's great to see So.
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  There's a lot of great things that come out, but we still have so many
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  species that we need to save and we need to choose to save that.
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  And the way we choose is to vote.
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  Support organizations, policy advocacy is huge, and a change in
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  consumption habits is even bigger.
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  That's where we're gonna end it.
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  I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
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  Do you think it's a great thing?
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  How do you think we should manage the other endangered
• 14:18
  species or even just ecosystems?
• 14:20
  I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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  Let me know in the comments below.
• 14:22
  If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening to
• 14:24
  the audio on your favorite podcast app, which I love, by the way.
• 14:27
  That's how I started.
• 14:28
  you're always gonna get audio only from me.
• 14:29
  It's gonna be great.
• 14:30
  I'd like you to hit me up on Instagram, dm me at how to protect the ocean.
• 14:34
  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode.
• 14:36
  And of course you can also go to speak up for blue.com/contact to fill out the form.
• 14:41
  Email me and let me know your thoughts.
• 14:43
  Love to hear it.
• 14:43
  That's it for today's episode.
• 14:44
  I wanna thank you so, so much.
• 14:46
  For supporting this podcast to the level that it has on YouTube.
• 14:50
  We've actually gotten to the first level of monetization, which opens up a lot of
• 14:54
  cool things that I'm working on right now to you know, continue with this community.
• 14:58
  I'm very much looking forward to it.
• 14:59
  I'm just looking through IT strategies right now.
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  But I can't wait to reveal it for you.
• 15:04
  So that was you.
• 15:04
  That was because of you guys being able to listen, being able to subscribe,
• 15:08
  to watch each and every episode.
• 15:09
  It's really, really important to me, and that means a lot to me.
• 15:12
  So thank you very much for listening.
• 15:13
  You have been listening to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 15:16
  I am your host, Andrew Lewin, from the True Nor Strong and free.
• 15:20
  Have a great day.
• 15:20
  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.