As of today, the ocean’s largest sea turtle now has 41,914
square miles of Pacific Ocean it can call its own. Oceana has
been working for five years to protect habitat critical to the
survival and recovery of the endangered Pacific leatherback sea
turtle, and it paid off. Thanks to a decision by the National
Marine Fisheries Service, these magnificent reptiles will now be
safeguarded off the U.S. West Coast. Leatherback sea turtles
migrate from Papua, Indonesia to the U.S. West Coast every
summer and fall to feed on jellyfish — a 12,000-mile round-trip
journey that is the longest known migration of any living marine
reptile. Sadly, these navigators encounter a gauntlet of threats
as they make their journey across the Pacific such as poaching;
ingestion of plastic bags which they mistake for their favorite
food, jellyfish; and entanglement and drowning in longline and
gillnet fishing gear. Due to these threats Pacific leatherbacks
have declined more than 95 percent since the 1980s and as few as
2,300 adult fem