Why Are Sea Turtles Endangered? Main Threats and Recovery

Are all sea turtles endangered?

Not all of them, and the status of each species varies by region. The table below shows the current global category on the IUCN Red List for all seven species, with the year of the latest global assessment.

Global categories hide big regional differences. The leatherback is Vulnerable overall, but its western and eastern Pacific populations are assessed as Critically Endangered. In contrast, the Mediterranean loggerhead population is Least Concern even though the loggerhead sea turtle is Vulnerable worldwide. In the United States, all six species found in US waters are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Threat 1: bycatch in fishing gear

NOAA Fisheries describes bycatch, the accidental capture of turtles in fishing gear, as the primary threat to sea turtles worldwide. Turtles breathe air, so a turtle caught in a shrimp trawl, gillnet or longline can drown before the gear is hauled in, or swallow hooks that injure it. Leatherbacks, which roam the open ocean, are especially vulnerable to longlines and drifting nets.

Solutions exist. Turtle excluder devices, metal grids with an escape flap fitted to shrimp trawls, let most turtles swim free, and they have been required in US shrimp fisheries since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Circle hooks, which are less likely to be swallowed, and seasonal closures in turtle hotspots also reduce deaths.

Threat 2: lost and disturbed nesting beaches

Every sea turtle starts life on a beach, so the loss of nesting sand is critical. Hotels, houses, roads and seawalls replace dunes and block females from reaching good nesting sites. Beach driving compacts sand and crushes nests, and erosion, made worse by rising seas, washes nests away.

Artificial light is a particular problem. Hatchlings find the sea by heading for the brightest horizon, and streetlights, hotels and houses behind a beach can lure them inland, where they die. Bright lights can also discourage females from coming ashore. Many coastal communities in Florida and the Mediterranean now require turtle-friendly lighting during the nesting season.

Threat 3: hunting and trade in eggs, meat and shell

For centuries, people killed sea turtles for meat, oil and leather and dug up their eggs. Green turtles were hunted for turtle soup, and the hawksbill sea turtle was slaughtered in enormous numbers for tortoiseshell; read more in why is the hawksbill critically endangered?

Today all sea turtles are listed in Appendix I of CITES, which bans international commercial trade, and many countries protect them by law. Illegal egg collection and poaching still occur in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia, and tortoiseshell souvenirs still turn up in some tourist markets.

Threat 4: plastic, pollution and disease

Sea turtles eat floating plastic, often because it looks or smells like their food. Leatherbacks can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, and young turtles swallow small fragments in ocean drift lines. Plastic can block the gut or leave turtles feeling full while starving. Abandoned fishing nets, called ghost nets, entangle and drown turtles. See why do sea turtles eat plastic?

Oil spills, chemical pollution and nutrient runoff damage the seagrass beds and reefs where turtles feed. Fibropapillomatosis, a disease that causes tumors on the skin and eyes, affects many green turtles in polluted coastal waters.

Threat 5: climate change

Climate change threatens sea turtles in several ways. Rising seas and stronger storms erode nesting beaches. Hotter sand kills more eggs and also changes the balance of the sexes, because in sea turtles warm nests produce females and cool nests produce males. A 2018 study found that more than 99% of young green turtles from the northern Great Barrier Reef population, which nests on very warm beaches, were female. Warming seas also damage coral reefs and seagrass and shift the location of turtles’ food.

Why slow breeding makes the problem worse

Sea turtles take roughly 10–35 years to mature, depending on the species, and only a small fraction of hatchlings survive to adulthood. Populations depend on adults surviving and nesting for many years. That means a fishing fleet that kills a few hundred adults a year can drive a population down, and even after the threat ends, recovery takes decades.

Sea turtle recovery success stories

There is real good news. In October 2025, the IUCN moved the green turtle from Endangered to Least Concern after its global population grew by about 28% since the 1970s, thanks to decades of nest and beach protection. In the Mediterranean, loggerhead nest counts have increased at many protected beaches.

The Kemp’s ridley shows how close a species can come to the edge. In 1947, an amateur film recorded tens of thousands of females nesting near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, in a single day. By 1985, only 702 nests were counted. Protection of the nesting beach and turtle excluder devices helped the species rebound to many thousands of nests a year, though growth has stalled since 2010.

Not every story is positive. Leatherback nesting in Malaysia fell from about 10,000 nests in 1953 to essentially none, and nesting by eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtles has fallen by more than 90% over three generations. These contrasts show that sea turtles can recover when threats are removed, but only with sustained protection both on beaches and at sea.