Six of the seven sea turtles are threatened. Where each species stands on the IUCN Red List, what’s pushing on them, and six things that help.
Most are. Six of the seven species are listed as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered by the IUCN. The Hawksbill and the Kemp’s Ridley are the two closest to the edge.
Several things at once: plastic (more than half of sea turtles have eaten some), coastal development taking nesting beaches, warmer nests hatching more females, drowning in fishing gear, illegal trade in shell and eggs, and introduced predators raiding nests. There’s no single villain, which is why no single fix works.
Use less single-use plastic. Support groups like the Sea Turtle Conservancy and the Turtle Survival Alliance. Choose seafood caught without drowning turtles. Join a beach cleanup. Keep beaches dark in nesting season. Never buy anything made of turtle shell. Six things, and they add up.
The Hawksbill and the Kemp’s Ridley are both Critically Endangered, the last listing before a species is gone from the wild. Hawksbill numbers have fallen more than 80 percent, mostly for the tortoiseshell trade. The Kemp’s Ridley is the rarest sea turtle and nests almost entirely on one beach in Mexico.
A turtle caught in a trawl net can drown before the net comes up. Turtle Excluder Devices are metal grids fitted in trawl nets that let a turtle push its way out while the catch stays in. They’ve saved hundreds of thousands of turtles since the 1980s, but not every fishery has to use them. Choosing seafood from fleets that do is the lever most of us can pull.
Turtle Tuesday Club is a free weekly turtle art project created by artist Lee Eisenbarth, who draws a new turtle every Tuesday for his son Henry. The project began on March 4, 2026 and runs as a 53-week series spanning sea turtles, freshwater turtles, and tortoises from around the world. 33 editions have been published so far. Every illustration is free to download under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).