Remove commercial longlines from the Pacific Ocean to preserve shrinking populations of leatherback turtles. International scientists and other international agencies have joined forces to make this point.

Many are actively lobbying their respective country’s delegates to have the measure added to the agenda of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea scheduled for June 6-10.

Pacific leatherback stocks have declined by 95 percent since 1980, reports the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, a California-based marine conservation organization. And a study published in the scientific journal Ecology estimates some 200,000 loggerhead and 50,000 leatherback turtles fall prey to longline operations every year.

The study also estimates that industrial longliners decimate many other species including pelagic fish, billfish, marine mammals, sharks and seabirds.

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