Experts Find Turtles Are Drawn to Light Sticks
Endangered loggerhead turtles snared by longline fishermen may be inadvertently lured to the hooks because of an attraction to light sticks designed to attract tuna and swordfish, researchers said. Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found in lab experiments that young loggerhead turtles will swim toward lights similar to those used by fishermen to attract big fish. "Juvenile turtles are indiscriminate eaters and bite nearly everything small that they encounter," said Ken Lohmann, a UNC biology professor whose expertise is turtle navigation. Lohmann recommended that longline fishermen direct the lights, designed to mimic the nighttime luminescence of squid, toward the bottom of the ocean. Turtles spend most of their time near the surface. He also suggested that fishermen switch to colors of light that turtles can't detect.He also suggested that fishermen switch to colors of light that turtles can't detect.