Abstract

Sea turtles are among the most threatened group of marine animals, with all species at risk for an assortment of anthropogenic factors including pollution, over-fishing bycatch, and climate change. As the threats to these large aquatic reptiles continue to increase, populations may be facing declines in many areas of their native home ranges. Therefore, new techniques that allow for population monitoring alongside more traditional methods are needed to increase our understanding of these ocean-dwelling vertebrates. Due to their unique biology, sea turtles are often readily observed in near-shore waters and on beach habitats. I assessed the presence and general demography of sea turtles within the USA on the citizen science platform, iNaturalist and report on major findings related to mortalities, age classes, and states where observations are concentrated. iNaturalist observations in this publication represent 8,089 green, 1,171 loggerhead, 312 kemp’s ridley, 129 leatherback, 128 hawksbill, and 17 olive ridley sea turtles. Observations consisted primarily of adult age classes (85.9%), with moralities representing only 10.2%, and the majority of images showing beach habitat (55%) versus open water (44.8%). The number of observations increased annually indicating the potential for this citizen science application to provide valuable population trend data for conservation managers and future study of their nesting and behavioral biology worldwide.

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