Ecology and Vulnerability

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle

A 2017 global review of papers focused on turtles and climate change recommendations focusing on the following areas: more data on individual species responses to climate change through skewed sex ratios, improvements to species distribution models including fine-scale climate and population-specific physiological variables and physiology, and actions that increase species resilience and mitigate climate threats (Butler, 2019).

Juvenile ocean-stage sea turtles (i.e., Green Sea Turtles, Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles, Loggerhead Sea Turtles) are projected to increase along the North Atlantic coast and in the Northern Atlantic Ocean based on simulated data from 1993 to 2017, making sea turtle conservation a priority along the Atlantic Coast due to climate change (Putman et al., 2020). A study testing phenological shifts of four sea turtles, two that are RSGCN (Loggerhead and Green Sea Turtles), projected that phenological shifts will likely not be enough to overcome the negative impacts due to warming sands on nesting grounds and sea water temperature from climate change (Fuentes et al., 2024).

Few studies were found on the impacts of climate change on sea turtles in the northeastern U.S.; therefore, many of the resources and information presented below are out of region but may provide useful context for how sea turtles are responding to climate impacts elsewhere and guide targets for similar studies for Northeast populations.

Shifts in Range, Elevation, or Depth

One study (DuBois et al., 2020) simulated the dispersal of Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles in the western Gulf of Mexico relative to high or low hurricane years. Higher hurricane frequency and intensity resulted in lower dispersal distances (DuBois et al., 2020). A second study simulated dispersal during juvenile years and found Kemp’s Ridleys dispersing from the Western Gulf of Mexico around Florida and past North Carolina by age 2.5 years; authors projected that Ridleys would move even farther north with climate change (Putnam et al., 2020). Once Kemp Ridley’s Sea Turtles leave the Gulf of Mexico for the North Atlantic Ocean and the coast of the eastern U.S., very few return to the Gulf of Mexico to nest (Caillouet and Gallaway, 2020).