Locals change fishing practices to help turtles, marine mammals rebound

Dugongs and turtles are having major issues in Queensland, but locals have made changes in their hunting practices to help the animals rebound. From Big Pond:

Queensland Environment Minister Vicki Darling on Thursday said the Girrigun Aboriginal Corporation, which covers two clan groups in the Townsville region, had agreed to suspend hunting of both species indefinitely. The clans are entitled to hunt both species under the Native Title Act but agreed to stop after widespread flooding across Queensland last summer damaged sea grass beds - the major food source for both animals - along the coastline. The agreement comes two weeks after traditional owners' groups from Bundaberg to Gladstone agreed to self-imposed bans on hunting both species

On our own shores, fisherman make changes to shrimping to help the turtles in the Gulf:

The study's authors estimate that 4,600 sea turtles die each year in U.S. coastal waters. Before measures to reduce bycatch were put in place, total sea turtle takes surpassed 300,000 annually. Of these, 70,000 turtles were killed. The study used data collected from 1990 to 2007 by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to determine bycatch rates across more than 20 fisheries operating in Atlantic waters from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, and in the Pacific Ocean, along the West coast and around Hawaii. It found that overall turtle bycatch rates, including both fatal and nonfatal run-ins, have fallen about 60 percent since 1990.

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