Overdeveloped coastal areas have reduced natural nesting habitats and caused increased lighting which disorients hatchlings and nesting mothers. Incidental capture of sea turtles in fishing nets and shrimp trawls, can prevent sea turtles from reaching the surface to breathe.

Pollution of the waters via trash, chemicals, and discarded fishing nets, lines, and hooks are frequently ingested by sea turtles causing internal health issues. Sea turtle populations have been seriously reduced worldwide through a number of human influences. Briefly, these laws state that: 'No person may take, harass, harm, pursue, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or attempts to engage in any such conduct to marine turtles, turtle nests, and/or turtle eggs.' Any person who knowingly violates any provision of the act may be assessed civil penalties up to $25,000 or criminal penalty up to $100,000 and up to one year imprisonment. All species of sea turtles are threatened or endangered and protected through Florida Statues, Chapter 370, and by the United States Endangered Species Act of 1973. Mainly overharvesting of sea turtles for meat, eggs, leather, and tortoise shells up until the 1970s caused turtle populations to crash. Three of these species the loggerhead ( Caretta caretta), green ( Chelonia mydas), and leatherback ( Dermochelys coriacea) sea turtles nest on Broward County’s beaches, and two of these species the hawksbill ( Eretmochelys imbricate) and Kemp’s ridley ( Lepidochlys kempi) are seen offshore. All are considered threatened or endangered. Seven species of sea turtles have managed to survive to modern times. The leatherback, the largest living sea turtle, is 7 feet from flipper to flipper and can weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Archelon, the largest sea turtle known, swam the waters 70 million years ago, was 16 feet from flipper to flipper and weighed over 5,000 pounds. The difference between them and their ancestors is size, they are a lot smaller today. Sea turtles have ancestors pre-dating the dinosaurs 245 million years ago. They have paddle-shaped flippers instead of feet, streamlined bodies, salt glands, and cannot retract into their shell like a land turtle can. Sea turtles are large, air breathing, ectothermic reptiles that have adapted for life in the sea.

Seaturtle breathing