10/15/2025
This week, we are celebrating a huge win for sea turtles and marine conservation. The IUCN Red List is the world’s leading indicator for the health of the world’s biodiversity, using the best available published data to inform people about the extinction risk of animal, plant and fungal species. Worldwide, the green turtle has been listed as ENDANGERED since the 1980’s, after years of over-harvesting.
Thanks to decades of global conservation efforts, the green turtle was recently downlisted to the status of “least concern”, meaning on a global scale, the green turtle has rebounded to a much healthier position. We celebrate this news knowing that this conservation success story would not be possible without hard work from governments, fishers, scientists, environmental managers, and the everyday person doing their part to prevent impacts from marine debris.
But our work is not over. Although their global status may have improved, individual population segments may be behaving differently. Green turtles are still listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act and are under full protection status from Federal and State governments. Data in the US does support that their populations are improving, particularly noted by our record nesting year in 2025 and every other year prior, but they have not been determined to be recovered and still need our help. In order to see this species recover in the US we have to continue focusing on our fishing practices to reduce bycatch, the removal of marine debris, coastal development along nesting beaches, and the importance of research and education to prevent future impacts to the species.
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