Migratory Connectivity and the Conservation of Migratory Animals
Migration is the repeated seasonal movement to and from a breeding area. The linking of individuals or populations of a given species within its range, including its breeding, migration, and wintering areas, is known as migratory connectivity. In this Article, we discuss how new technologies and approaches are enhancing our knowledge of migratory connectivity, which in turn can improve our legal and policy approaches to the conservation of migratory animals. Advances in studying and documenting migratory connectivity require new approaches to the design and implementation of both domestic and international conservation efforts. Understanding migratory connectivity of different populations of species between specific geographic locations can also help build “social connectivity” for conservation—the cultural, educational, economic, and institutional linkages between these same locations that are a necessary foundation for effective and sustainable conservation efforts.
The inter‐American convention for the protection and conservation of sea Turtles
This report has been prepared by the IAC Scientific Committee Working Group on Nesting Trend Analysis and recommends that it be used to guide the selection of index sea turtle nesting sites in the IAC region. The goals of this document are: (1) to provide a justification for using real nesting numbers rather than ranges in nesting abundance in the IAC Annual Reports, (2) provide guidelines for selecting IAC index nesting sites that will be used in Annual reports, and (3) provide considerations for annual data collection on nesting females at each index beach.
Marine Turtle Conservation in the Wider Caribbean Region: A Dialogue for Effective Regional Management
Long-lived marine animals generally grow slowly and mature at a late age. In addition, many longlived species have low fecundity or variable and infrequent recruitment. Long-lived marine animals are particularly vulnerable to excessive mortalities and rapid population collapse after which recovery may take decades. The von Bertalanffy growth coefficient (k) is a useful index in addressing the potential vulnerability of populations to excessive mortality. Groups that have k coefficients < .0.10 are particularly vulnerable and include most elasmobranchs (for example, sharks), all sturgeons, many large teleosts (bony fish), and all the cheloniid sea turtles (among others). Another useful index in assessing the vulnerability of populations to excessive mortality is the intrinsic rate of increase (r). Vulnerability is inversely proportional to r, with groups that have annual increase rates < 10% being particularly at risk. These include most elasmobranchs, all sturgeons, many teleosts, all sea turtles, many sea birds, and large cetaceans. Traditional surplus production models may be inappropriate for most long-lived marine animals because of the long lag-time in population response to harvesting. Rather, demographic models based on life-history parameters have provided useful recently in assessing impacts of mortality on longlived species such as sharks and sea turtles. The greatest threats to long-lived marine animals come from mixed species fisheries in which long-lived species are taken ancillary to more abundant, productive species. Such fisheries may drive long-lived species to extirpation while the more productive species sustain catches. Resource managers need to be aware of the critical management requirements of long-lived species. In most instances such species can sustain only limited excess harvesting. To ignore the special nature of the population dynamics of long-lived species leads inevitably to population collapse or even extirpation.