Hoping to gain an organism’s-eye view of the aquatic world, the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) project is deploying thousands of satellite transmitters on large marine species. As these animals move about the Pacific, the high-tech tags gather information that is instantly transmitted to onshore labs.

In 1947, Andres Herrera documented an estimated 40,000 Kemp’s ridleys nesting simultaneously in a single day at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. Fourteen years later, scientists were shocked to see this phenomenon on tape because by then, Kemp’s numbers were reduced to approximately 6,000 animals in an entire year.

Over the past two years, researchers around the world have contributed their time, energy, and scientific data to SWOT, in an effort to map the leatherback nesting beaches of the world with the best available information from the last complete nesting season in 2004.

Urgency and limited resources have driven conservationists to be increasingly strategic in their focus, and setting priorities is critical for any effort, whether directed at a species, an ecosystem, or the Biosphere as a whole. In this article, conservationists lay out the top ten 10 conservation priorities for sea turtle conservation.

What is the simplest way to destroy a sea turtle nesting population? The answer is easy: by over-exploiting its females or their eggs at the nesting beach. And the most effective way to rehabilitate that over-exploited sea turtle population? This should also be a simple solution: protect its nesting females, along with their eggs and hatchlings, at the beach.

“Protecting the habitat of sea turtles is equivalent to protecting the habitats of thousands of species—whales, sharks, seabirds, sea flora, even humans...” - Dr. Sylvia Earle