The most difficult task that I have is to come to some 

 conclusion about the stability of the U.S. aggregation. It would 

 be easy to say simply that available data, such as those in Table 

 2, are inadequate as a basis for the detection of a trend, or to 

 agree with Mager (1985) , who believed the size of this group was 

 increasing. For a nvimber of somewhat unorthodox reasons I have 

 concluded that the U.S. aggregation is continuing to decline. 

 That statement needs some defending and to do so requires a 

 consideration of fundamental sea turtle zoology, the special 

 consequences it has for sea turtle conservation, and the use of 

 several recent demographic and theoretical treatments of 

 loggerhead population data that, in my opinion, are of salient 

 importance . 



One of the most important evolutionary innovations developed 

 by the earliest reptiles was the cleidoic, or shelled egg. It 

 was one of the things that allowed them to colonize the dry land. 

 However, to regard the cleidoic egg as something of a liability 

 for the marine turtles, which returned secondarily to the sea and 

 became thoroughly adapted for life there, is not incorrect. Few 

 terrestrial environments on earth that are more exposed, unstable 

 or dangerous places to deposit eggs than ocean beaches; yet sea 

 turtles, as the only surviving, fully marine reptiles, are 

 obliged, by limitations of limb structure, to deposit their eggs 

 on beaches. Sea turtle life history strategy has adapted to the 

 vicissitudes of meteorology, sea level fluctuation, predator 

 abundance and diversity, and a host of other threatening factors, 

 over geological time. Sea turtles have "weathered the storm" of 

 tremendous loss in the early life history stages by becoming the 

 most fecund of reptiles. For the very small proportion of 

 neonates that survive to juvenile- and subadult-hood, another 

 fundamental aspect of turtle biology comes into play. The shell, 

 which has served to preserve and protect turtles as a group for 

 over 100 million years, together with many other morphological, 

 behavioral and physiological adaptations, has provided, under 

 totally natural conditions, for an exceedingly small loss 

 (mortality) during the long period of growth to maturity. What I 

 refer to as "zoological common sense" tells us that the strategy 

 is resilient to the loss of large numbers of eggs and hatchlings 

 but it is not designed to sustain any substantial loss in the 

 penultimate stages, the juveniles/subadults. 



Since WATS I, a series of important papers that provide a 

 solid theoretical foundation for these conclusions has been 

 published. The large body of loggerhead reproductive data 

 gathered over 20 years by Richardson and his associates at Little 

 Cumberland Island, Georgia, has provided for the development of 

 population models (Richardson 1982; Richardson and Richardson 

 1982; Frazer 1983, 1984, 1987b) and a preliminary life table 

 (Frazer 1983) that are of great usefulness in understanding 

 loggerhead population stability and setting management policy. 

 Richardson and Richardson's (1982) model imputes a turnover of 



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