not happen each year. These few study results suggest that 

 natural hatch rates were generally not far from 50%. In spite of 

 their popularity, labor-intensive hatchery and nest protection 

 programs can only be carried out on a small fraction of the U.S. 

 nesting beaches. While they apparently enhance hatch rates by 20 

 to 35% in local areas, their overall contribution to population 

 stability may be rather small. That we need to employ such 

 techniques at all is often the direct or indirect consequence of 

 energy-intensive technological alteration of coastal ecosystems. 

 We should not lose sight of the fact that preservation and 

 maintenance of the natural attributes of barrier islands and 

 other sandy shorelines is the ultimate nesting beach management 

 technique. 



I am not suggesting that we should abandon management of 

 nesting beaches. Grouse et al. (1987), whose model predicts 

 that, "achieving zero mortality of eggs on nesting beaches would 

 likely be ineffective as a management tool if no concurrent 

 action is taken in the juvenile stage," agree that we should 

 maintain current efforts to protect eggs. The point is, however, 

 that these relatively expensive procedures have not been used 

 very widely on non-U. S. loggerhead nesting beaches in the WATS 

 region. Before we begin to regionalize their use, we should take 

 Pritchard's advice and evaluate their feasibility and 

 effectiveness in the cold, hard light of the scientific method. 



Proposals for Recovery Management and Research 



The WATS Executive Committee has asked that I list and rank 

 suggestions for promoting recovery, and research needs. I 

 believe that the panel gathered here can handle that task much 

 more thoroughly than I, but I offer the following short lists, 

 which are nothing more than one person's opinion, as "points of 

 departure" for the discussion to follow. 



Proposals for recovery management 



(1) Go forward with the full program for implementation of the 

 Turtle Excluder Device (TED) that was begun on 1 October 1987 in 

 the U.S.; provide adequate enforcement. 



(2) Implement use of the TED in all parts of the region where 

 loggerheads and shrimp trawlers coincide. 



(3) Regulate pound nets, gill nets and other fishing devices 

 wherever and to the extent that they are known to kill turtles. 



(4) Enact legislation and promulgate regulations to minimize the 

 deposition of solid waste materials, particularly synthetics 

 (plastic containers, wrappings, etc.; monofilament, polyethylene 

 and nylon line) , and toxic wastes into the marine environment. 



134 



