Plastic pollution, beach huts posing threat to survival of sea turtles: WWF-P.

KARACHI -- Sea turtles along Pakistan's coast face a host of anthropogenic threats, which include habitat degradation, plastic pollution and entanglement in fishing gears. The major nesting grounds along Sandspit and Hawkesbay beaches in Karachi and Taq in Ormara, Balochistan, have been adversely affected by construction of huts.

This was stated by experts associated with the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) on the occasion of World Sea Turtle Day, which is observed every year on June 16.

In Pakistan, sea turtles are known to nest on a number of beaches, including Sandspit, Hawkesbay and Cape Monze, along the Sindh coast, and Taq (Ormara), Astola Island, Gwadar Headland and Daran along the Balochistan coast. Thousands of female turtles visit these beaches to nest and lay eggs.

A 2012 WWF-P study showed that 30,000 sea turtles were annually caught in tuna gillnets in the country. This included roughly 25,500 olive ridley and 4,500 green turtles in the offshore waters of Pakistan.

It was estimated that about three per cent of the entangled turtles were dying due to drowning or mishandling on-board fishing vessels.

'The organisation trained 100 skippers and crew members to safely release entangled turtles and developed a modification in the operation of gillnet, which significantly reduced entanglement of sea turtles. This is a major achievement towards the conservation of sea turtles along Pakistan's coast,' said Muhammad Moazzam Khan, the technical adviser with WWF-P.

Pollution, he pointed out, was another major threat to the sea turtle population in Pakistani waters. 'Popular beaches are littered with garbage, dominated by single-use and microplastics. The...