World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

INTRODUCTIONof Mexico are treated separately, as arc mainland India and the islandterritories of India. Whilst this is intended to increase precision, andthe number of such units will be closer to the total number of nestingpopulations than would the number of countries in which the species nest,considerable bias remains. All units are far from equivalent, and to statethat populations appear to have declined on Cyprus, for example, has verydifferent implications for C. mydas numbers than stating that populations inIndonesia are in decline. Nevertheless, given that these limitations arerecognised, it is to be hoped that the figures give a useful broad basis forcomparisonTable 8. Sununary of selected data on sea turtle populations.C. mydas E. imbricata1. Number of geopolitical unitswith breeding populations^2. Indication of annualnesting numbers^3. Number of geopolitical unitswith major populations^99(148)100 000-200 00016(23)65(123)15 000-25 000 ?24(26)4. Number of geopolitical units with large and apparently stable populations:(a) not known to besignificantly depleted* 8 ?(b) possibly depletedowing to past exploitation 4 ?5. Number suspected to bedepleted or in decline(exclusive of 6, below) 38 386. Number with declinewell-substantiated(exclusive of 7, below) 29 187. Number of geopolitical unitswith breeding populationseffectively extirpated"noneknownNote^: the upper figure indicates the number of units where some estimatecan be attempted of relative nesting density, whether sparse and occasional,or heavy and regular (all those represented by "0/1" to "5" in columns 1 and6 of Table 11). The lower figure (in parentheses) in addition takes accountof all sites where nesting is certain but at an unknown level, or possiblebut unconfirmed (all those units represented by "?" in the Table cited).Whilst the great majority of "?" populations are likely to be small, a veryfew, eg. Eretmochelys in Madagascar, are suspected to be of regional orworld importance. The number of "significant" populations will thus begreater than the upper figure but considerably less than the lower figure.45