Welcome to NOAA Fisheries’ Sea Turtle Week 2025! This annual campaign celebrates these highly migratory marine reptiles by focusing attention on the threats they face and the conservation efforts to protect them. This year, our celebration highlights NOAA’s conservation and recovery efforts and what you can do to save sea turtles.
All six species of sea turtles that inhabit U.S. waters are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act:
NOAA Fisheries leads the conservation and recovery of sea turtles in the marine environment including areas for resting, feeding, migrating, and access to nesting sites.
Healthy Oceans Need Sea Turtles
Sea turtles play a vital role in supporting productive oceans. They help maintain coral reef and sea grass ecosystems and transport essential nutrients from the oceans to beaches and coastal dunes. Sea turtles are a “keystone species,” which means they are an essential part of their environment, and they influence other species around them.
We are actively working to reduce primary threats to sea turtles using innovative techniques to study sea turtle populations. We lead important long-term monitoring efforts and coordinate the National Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network. These efforts are proving successful, and some sea turtle populations are increasing. However, there are still challenges that we are addressing to fully recover these species, including:
- Reducing bycatch and entanglement in fishing gear by working with the fishing industry to develop solutions while maintaining profitable and sustainable fisheries
- Educating the public on safe boating practices to reduce vessel strikes
- Working with partners to restore habitats that are important to sea turtle recovery
What You Can Do To Save Sea Turtles
You can do your part to help conserve sea turtles by being conscious when making choices in and around the water. Here’s how:
Watch for Sea Turtles in the Water
Give them at least 50 yards of space. If you see them close by, put your engine in neutral to avoid harm. Viewing guidelines and laws vary by region, state, and species. Please be familiar with the applicable rules before you visit our coastal waters.
Slow Down and Look Out
Sea turtles surface to breathe and linger on the surface while breathing. Larger turtles—subadults and adults—have slower reflexes and may have a hard time responding to quick-moving boats and jet skis. When boating near reef or seagrass habitats, harbors, jetties, and boat ramps, or near nesting beaches during the nesting season, reduce your speed to 10 knots or less. Keep an eye out for sea turtles. Remember: Go Slow: Sea Turtles Below!
Become a Conscious and Responsible Seafood Consumer
Ask where and how your seafood was caught. Choose seafood caught in ways that do not harm or kill turtles. Consult sustainable seafood information networks to learn about how and where your seafood is caught.
Retrieve and Recycle Fishing Gear or Plastic Marine Debris
Keep a close eye on your gear while fishing, especially in areas where turtles are present. Hooks, lines, or nets left in the water can entangle and kill sea turtles. If you lose your gear while fishing or find abandoned gear (or plastic debris), pull it out of the water safely and dispose of it properly. Gear and plastics in the water or tangled up on reefs can catch, injure, or drown a sea turtle.
Report Turtles In Distress
Contact your local sea turtle stranding network if you see a sick or injured sea turtle. Do not try to help the sea turtle on your own. Reporting a sick, injured, entangled, stranded, or dead animal is the best way to make sure professional responders and scientists know about it and can take appropriate action.
Kim Damon-Randall
Director of NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources
