Like other sea turtles, hawksbills are threatened by the loss of nesting and feeding habitats, excessive egg collection, fishery-related mortality, pollution, and coastal development. However, they are most threatened by wildlife trade.
Despite their current protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and many national laws, there is still a disturbingly large amount of illegal trade in hawksbill shells and products. They are much sought after throughout the tropics for their beautiful brown and yellow carapace plates that are manufactured into tortoiseshell items for jewelry and ornaments. In recent decades, eastern Asia has provided an eager market for tortoiseshell.
Despite their current protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and many national laws, there is still a disturbingly large amount of illegal trade in hawksbill shells and products. They are much sought after throughout the tropics for their beautiful brown and yellow carapace plates that are manufactured into tortoiseshell items for jewelry and ornaments. In recent decades, eastern Asia has provided an eager market for tortoiseshell.
HAwksBIll Top StoriesSea turtle egg poaching legalization in Costa Rica: The Debate
Two decades on, an unusual project to stabilize the population of Olive Ridley sea turtles in the coastal town of Ostional on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula that led the Government to legally permit an exemption to the ban on harvesting sea turtle eggs, remains controversial. Predicting species interactions from edge responses: mongoose predation on hawksbill sea turtle nests in fragmented beach habitat
Because species respond differently to habitat boundaries and spatial overlap affects encounter rates, edge responses should be strong determinants of spatial patterns of species interactions. In the Caribbean, mongooses (Herpestes javanicus) prey on hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) eggs. Turtles nest in both open sand and vegetation patches, with a peak in nest abundance near the boundary between the two microhabitats; mongooses rarely leave vegetation. |
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