Pritchard (1982) raised this estimate greatly, to 115,000. 

 The principal new components of this estimate were an estimated 

 75,000 nesting females in Pacific Mexico, and additional 12,000 

 estimated for Central America, 4,000 for the Vogelkop Peninsula 

 of Irian Jaya and 3,000 for other parts of Melanesia. 



Pritchard (in prep.) gives the following population 

 estimates for the western Atlantic nesting colonies: 



Costa Rica through Panama To Colombia: 4,000 



Trinidad: 750 



Guyana: 500 



Surinam/French Guiana: 15,000 



Dominican Republic: 300 



Other West Indies: 200 



Demonstrable Population Trends 



The steadily rising population estimates given by Fitter 

 (1961), and Pritchard (1971, 1982, in prep.) may suggest that the 

 leatherback population is increasing rapidly, and it is 

 noteworthy that, while Carr (1952) commented that "the only 

 herpetologist who has had the enviable experience of observing 

 the entire nesting and laying procedure of Dermochelys is Paul 

 Deraniyagala of Ceylon," today we know of dozens of locations in 

 the Western Hemisphere alone where one may predictably see 

 nesting leatherbacks, often dozens and in some cases, even a 

 hundred or two, in a single night. 



Nevertheless, separation of the possibility of greatly 

 increasing leatherback populations from the certainty of far more 

 thorough field investigations and more comprehensive knowledge of 

 the breeding range of the species in recent years is not easy. 

 Both factors may well have been at work. In some cases, data are 

 available to demonstrate a spectacularly upward trend; Schulz 

 (1982) documented the following numbers of leatherback nests (not 

 numbers of turtles, but presumably directly related to the 

 numbers of turtles) in Surinam for the years noted: 



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