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Leatherback Sea Turtle

(Dermochelys coriacea)

Photo Courtesy of World Chelonia Trust

The leatherback sea turtle is classified as an Endangered species in New York State and the United States and is the largest living species of turtle. They can reach lengths of six feet and weigh up to 1,300 pounds. The body is best described as barrel-shaped and is covered with a leathery skin. Leatherback sea turtles have ridges (known as keels) the run the length of the back and underside of the turtle. These keels divide the leatherback into eight sections above and six below. The front flippers are disproportinally large front flippers and allow the leatherback to cover great distances and swim for long periods of time. The shell is a brown, blue, or black with white dots or patches speckled all over.

The leatherback sea turtle has the widest range of any reptile and can be found all around the globe in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indean Oceans. Leatherbacks will also range farther north than other sea turtles because of their ability to maintain a warmer core temperature than other species over a longer period of time. In the Atlantic leatherbacks can be found easily off the coast of New England, in Long Island waters, and the Gulf of Mexico. There have also been recorded sightings off the shores of Canada, the British Isles, Iceland, Spain, and other parts of Europe.

Leatherback sea turtles eat soft foods such as tunicates and jellyfish.

Leatherback sea turtles prefer nesting on beaches which have coarse sand, are subject to erosion, and are adjacent to deep water. Nesting sites include locations in St. Croix, Vieques, Culebra Islands, and the mid-Atlantic Florida coast. There have also been recent isolated nestings along the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Georgia. Female leatherback sea turtles will nest five to seven times a season in 10 day intervals. Experts believe that sexually mature females nest every two to three years. A typical nesting consists of 60 to 150 eggs laid at night. After 55 to 75 days the eggs hatch and make their run for the sea.

There are only an estimated 115,000 adult female leatherback sea turtles in existance. The greates threat to leatherbacks is the harvesting of eggs from nesting sites for food. In some areas such as Mexico almost all of the eggs laid are harvested for food. While there are laws preventing this, they are not regularly enforced. Currently only 7 of the 19 known nesting sites are currently protected. There are only four known nesting sites consisting of more that 1,000 females.

The leatherback sea turtle does not nest in New York State, but they can still become stranded on or near the shore. A Standing Network was created in 1980 with the cooperation of the New York State Department of Conservation, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Riverhead Foundation. If a standing is sighthed please contact the hotline at (516) 369-9829. Calling the hotline will enable the Marine Biologists at Riverhead to handle the standed or dead turtles.

Because of the high rates of sea turtle mortality in trawl nets the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations requiring shrimp trawlers to have Turtle Excluder Devices (TED) on all of their nets. The TED allows turtles and other large marine animals to escape in case they accidently enter the net.

Remember that in many places it is illegal to take wildlife out of the wild without the proper permits from local, state, or federal authorities. Please do not release any captive reptiles or amphibians into the wild as this will disrupt the natural order of our environment. See our amphibian and reptile adoptions page for more information on what to do with unwanted herps.

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