Sea Turtle Recovery: Competing parties spin ambiguous data different ways

Sea turtle recovery not as certain as it seems

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130304/PC16/130309738/sea-turtle-recovery-not-as-certain-as-it-seems&source=RSS

Loggerhead sea turtles were added to the endangered species list some time in the 1970’s, and since that time researchers have seen a large increase in the amount of nests laid on the beaches of SC. The Department of Natural resources revealed a shocking number of nests in SC for 2012: around 2000. This number is even more striking when compared to the number of nests in 2004, which was 400. If this rapid growth is actually taking place, why aren’t we seeing swarms of writhing loggerheads on the beaches? Why aren’t we tripping over them unexpectedly as we play football or frisbee? If there really are so many more loggerhead sea turtles, why is it still illegal to ride them or hold them up in the air while you run to help them pretend they are flying?

The reason for this is simple; like poptarts, the numbers from the Department of Natural resources are partly artificial, that is to say, they do not tell the whole truth. However, also like poptarts, it isn’t really their fault. Because of a rush to protect these turtles, an increase in research and recording has happened, meaning that more researchers are out on the job, more nests are being reported, and more accurate numbers are being produced. While this is all well and good, the nowadays-numbers are looking like a reason to pat ourselves on the back only because the then-a-days numbers are actually based on not-as-thorough scientific measures.

DNR officials still seem optimistic. DuBose Griffin still holds that loggerhead turtle and nest counts are up not only because of increased recording, but also because of an actual population increase. Doing a little research on the subject, I found the graph of loggerhead turtle nests over the years reported by the SCDNR.

After reviewing the graph, that increase from 2004 seems a little less like a byproduct of diagnosis and more like an outlier. Also, the amount of loggerhead nests reported are highly variable year to year, why isn’t there more consistency? The graph also appears to not really have changed that much on the whole since 1982. Maybe our methods are simply not up to snuff (even today) when it comes to recording loggerhead activity.

Maybe DuBose Griffin wants to keep her job as Sea Turtle Program coordinator by trying to make things seem positive. Maybe the loggerhead sea turtle population is actually growing and soon we will be riding loggerheads into waves and feeding them bits of hot dog while we pet their carapaces (… because they are so plentiful).

Or maybe the Post and Courier wanted to take an incredibly ambiguous set of sea turtle data and turn it into a provocatively depressing “aww man, humans are bad” news article that makes the author seem witty and on-top-of-things.