A turtle in trouble

The loggerhead turtle is one of the seven species of sea turtles in the world. It is a pelagic migratory species, excellent swimmer sea morphology with a perfectly adapted to this environment, while living in ocean and coastal areas. Their food is varied, from invertebrates to jellyfish. They are solitary animals and most of his life spent at sea, making migration of thousands of miles to the beaches to take place on mating and spawning. Copulation takes place off the beaches. To put the eggs the female comes ashore, dig a nest with their fins and put it back up to 100 eggs at a depth of about 20 cm. Required to do so Undisturbed sandy beaches. The explosion occurs about 50 days after the start, during the night, and immediately the offspring go to sea. Infant mortality is very high and it is estimated that a very small percentage of the offspring born out of reach sexual maturity, which is fixed at 25 years of age. The loggerhead turtle has a cosmopolitan distribution, found in Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. In the Mediterranean Sea is reproduced in its eastern part, and the rest of the world does so in tropical seas, subtropical and temperate. The main threats to their conservation are on the ground, human pressure on the beaches that were played each day brunt of urbanization and mass tourism. Additionally, some nests are predados by dogs, cats, foxes, etc ... In the sea, despite its broad protection, there are serious threats to the species, all related to human activities, including the thousands of deaths in various types of fishing nets and hooks of longlines (with numbers above 60,000 turtles a year in the Mediterranean Sea). Although many of the turtles caught at sea are returned, many others died from injuries caused by the hooks. Other causes of death at sea are impacts with boats, the confusion of plastic bags for jellyfish, to swallow a large amount of trash that can clog their digestive systems, chemical pollution of the seas, which caused fatal tumors, difficulties in their reproductive and sexual maturation, immune system depression, and many more. CONSERVATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA The main battle front in the conservation of the loggerhead turtle in the Mediterranean area of distribution is the protection of nesting areas. This protection is especially important in Zakynthos, where it is prohibited to build and develop tourism nesting beaches. It is also advisable to avoid visiting naturalists and curious night during nesting. It is also necessary to conduct a study to know exactly the impact of bycatch and to propose measures to mitigate its effect on the population and reducing design measures. It is also necessary closures in some places and replace the existing hooks on longlines used by other larger, which can not be swallowed by turtles or constructed with a degradable material in the digestive systems of animals. Declaration of a marine protected area in the waters south of Formentera (Balearic Islands), creation and implementation of a national conservation plan for the loggerhead turtle and specific management plans and fisheries in areas where there was a particularly high catch accidental turtle. Exploration of new nesting areas, especially in North African countries, as well as the location of feeding and wintering areas are points where special efforts should be made. Similarly, it should be quite an impact on research on migration, the behavior of the species and habitat needs. Other conservationists are to develop awareness campaigns, education and environmental awareness, to citizens, tourists and fishermen.