nesting females every six seasons, only a three year mean 

 longevity for nesting adults, and a 39% annual recruitment rate. 

 Their survivorship curve implies that 50% of any given cohort of 

 females is replaced in three years. Significant for my argument 

 also, Frazer (1986) has concluded from these data that the Little 

 Cumberland Island loggerhead population is declining at the rate 

 of 3.0% per year. Also, recently compiled nesting survey data 

 from South Carolina indicate a 5% per year decline in that 

 nesting aggregation (S. Murphy, pers. comm.). 



Another very recent and important theoretical product of the 

 Little Cumberland Island work is the development of a Lefkovitch 

 stage-class matrix model of the loggerhead population (Grouse et 

 al. 1987). These authors show clearly that loggerhead population 

 stability is much more sensitive to changes in the "large 

 juvenile" stage (essentially equivalent to sxibadults) than in 

 earlier stages (eggs and hatchlings) . They conclude that 

 "managers need to address the uncomfortable possibility that 

 their current conservation efforts may be focusing on the part of 

 the turtle's life history least likely to produce noticeable, 

 longterm results;" and further that "the key to improving the 

 outlook for these populations lies in reducing mortality in the 

 later stages, particularly the large juveniles." 



With all this theory and "zoological common sense" as 

 background, then, one returns to the real world to find that in 

 the southeastern U.S. an estimated 12,600 loggerheads drown each 

 year (Weber 1987) and the great majority of them are subadults (= 

 "large juveniles") . They are drowned in shrimp trawls (Hillestad 

 et al. 1982), pound nets (Lutcavage and Musick 1985) and gill 

 nets (Crouse 1984) ; crushed and mutilated by dredges (Ehrhart 

 1987) ; fatally wounded by boat propellers (ibid) ; ensnared in 

 discarded nets and line and undoubtedly suffer from ocean 

 pollution in the form of solid wastes and toxic svibstances. 



Considering the estimate of about 14,150 nesting adult 

 females per year, the necessary annual recruitment to that stage 

 implied by the Richardson and Richardson model, the sensitivity 

 of the stage-based population model to loss at the subadult 

 stage, the mortality of about 5,000 subadult females per year, 

 Frazer 's estimate of a 3% population decline in Georgia and 

 Murphy's estimate of a 5% loss in South Carolina, I can only 

 conclude that the aggregation of loggerhead turtles represented 

 by adult females that nest in the southeastern U.S. is continuing 

 to decline. 



Status of Foraging Populations 



Of the 40 countries/regions that participated in WATS I, 29 

 reported some level of foraging activity by loggerheads. In only 

 13 of them, judging by information in the national reports. Bacon 

 (1981) and Carr et al. (1982), are foraging loggerheads frequent, 



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