Summary

Hawksbill Turtles occur circumglobally around the tropical, and parts of the sub-tropical, waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are known to nest in at least 70 countries, including Australia. They live in a variety of habitats but are mostly found in shallow coral reef habitats where they use the narrow beak-like mouth that gives them their name to feed on sponges and some other marine invertebrates.

Individuals spend the first few years of their life in open water before migrating to shallow coastal feeding grounds. Hawksbills may live up to 60 years and mature very slowly, taking from 20 to possibly up to 40 years to reach sexual maturity. In Australia, maturity is reached later than in other populations. Every one to five years, females return to the beaches they hatched on to lay eggs. They will lay three to five nests between April and November containing around 150 eggs. Around two months after nesting the eggs will hatch at night, when there are fewer predators, and crawl into the sea. Some of the largest Hawksbill nesting populations occur along the northwest coast of Australia and around the Great barrier Reef on the northeast coast.

Hawksbills are at risk from many threats, including being trapped as bycatch in fishing nets, being hunted for meat and for the tortoiseshell trade and their eggs harvested. They are also vulnerable to marine pollution as well as the destruction of their nesting and feeding habitats, as large parts of the tropical coastlines on which they nest are undergoing development for tourism.

The protection of habitat has allowed some populations to stabilise or even increase in size, but many are still decreasing and globally the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies Hawksbill Turtles as Critically Endangered. They are also listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to prevent international trade threatening them with extinction in the wild.

Specimen Details

Taxonomy

Geospatial Information

  • Precise Location

    No locality