(AP) -- It's a scene that scientists say is all too common: A
commercial fishing boat pulls in a net full of shrimp or tuna
and finds a loggerhead sea turtle mixed in with the catch.
Biologists like Matthew Godfrey say one or two such takings can
happen every day among fishing fleets off the Southeast coast.
Those numbers can add up to thousands annually for a turtle
species that has traveled the oceans for 200 million years but
now faces a growing array of threats. Godfrey is among the
authors of the latest federal report on loggerheads that says
most groups of the ancient reptile are at risk of extinction -
in large part due to increased commercial fishing. The study,
released last month, predicted broad population declines across
the globe in the coming years, including in a nesting area along
the southeastern United States that is one of the world's
largest. "Unfortunately, a lot of times the target fish habitat
and the turtle habitat overlap," said Godfrey, of the North
Carolina Wildlife Resources Commis