Shrimp Fisheries

The highest level of all turtle mortality world-wide is associated with the shrimp trawling industry, which it is calculated kills ten times as many turtles as all other forms of fishing put together (National Research Council 1990). As well as causing the turtles to drown by trapping them in nets underwater for hours, there have recently been reports in the Mediterranean that pollution caused by shrimp farms kills turtles.

An article in the Turkish newspaper Hurryet (1996) reports:

”A large number of loggerhead turtles have been washed up dead on the shore of the village of Deenisyaka in Antalya. According to the villagers these, now common deaths, are caused by the pollution from the Palmar Shrimp farm. Villagers have warned authorities that they have had to bury at least 30 adult sea turtles.•

The validity of this source is yet unknown, and the figures quoted may well be an over or under estimate of the actual death total. The exact cause or nature of the pollution is also unknown.