The endangered loggerhead turtle has seen a population increase over the past four years, but the federal government has asked for even more protection of their critical habitat.
The green turtles have been protected since 1973, and are the "primary nesting species" in North Carolina, Star News Online reported.
Carolina Beach Mayor Bob Lewis believes local loggerhead-protection groups provide sufficient protection, and further efforts would be unnecessary and costly.
"Based on what people on the water tell me, there is an increase in young turtles, but that doesn't mean a population recovery," Jean Beasley, founder of the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island, told Star News Online. "Loggerheads and green turtles, which are our two major species in North Carolina, are not sexually mature until they're about 35 years old, so those young turtles have to grow up. And these turtles can get in the Atlantic gyre and travel all the way around the hemisphere, so how the heck can anybody assess populations? It is a very, very difficult question to measure."
This year was one of the most productive nesting periods recorded in decades. In North Carolina there have been 1,216 nests recorded so far, which is a seven percent increase since the previous 1999 record. In 2009 there were only 619 nests in the entire state.
State nest totals have gradually increased over the past four years, but the numbers still don't meet the loggerhead recovery plan's 2,000-nests-a-year goal.
"I don't think anybody who studies sea turtles would say that nest data over four years would say one way or other," Matthew Godfrey, sea turtle biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission told Star News Online. "There are up and down years. You need to do a statistical analysis, and based on past analyses up to last year, there just isn't a statistical trend in the numbers. There's a lot of variability."
Gofrey estimated researchers will need at least three decades of solid data in order to come up with a "credible population estimate."
"A lot of fishermen claim that they see more turtles now than they have in the past, and I don't doubt that," said Chris Batsavage, protected resources section chief for the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries. "But it's hard to put any numbers to that. It appears that the conservation measures that have been in place for turtles are working, but to say for sure that there's many more compared to 20 years ago - that's speculation."
