For hundreds of millions of years， turtles have struggled out of the sea to lay theireggs on sandy beaches， long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate them， or GPSsatellites and marine biologists to track them， or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings down to the water's edge lest they become disoriented by headlights and crawl towards a motelparking lot instead. A formidable wall of bureaucracy has been erected to protect their primenesting on the Atlantic coastlines. With all that attention paid to them， you'd think these creatureswould at least have the gratitude not to go extinct.
But Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness， and a report by the Fish and WildlifeService showed a worrisome drop in the populations of several species of North Atlantic turtles，notably loggerheads， which can grow to as much as 400 pounds. The South Florida nestingpopulation， the largest， has declined by 50% in the last decade， according to Elizabeth Griffin， amarine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted Oceana to petition thegovernment to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic loggerheads from "threatened" to"endangered" ——meaning they are in danger of disappearing without additional help.
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