Turtle density around Mussau Island, Papua New Guinea: with notes on the practicality of in-water distance sampling.

Our sea turtle density estimates were higher than those recorded by [18] who used a similar in-water distance sampling method for sea turtles at Glover's Reef Atoll, a marine reserve, in Belise. Despite sea turtles being culturally important for many coastal communities around Papua New Guinea (PNG) with 15 000 + turtles harvested annually (over 36% of legal global harvest; [9]), the sustainability of sea turtle populations in PNG is not currently monitored. Raw sea turtle counts were more weakly correlated with the density estimates for inshore transects (adjusted I r i SP 2 sp = 0.37) than reef crest transects (adjusted I r i SP 2 sp = 0.58). Estimated sea turtle abundance at reef crest transects with 95% confidence interval error bars at low, mid, and high tide for each transect monitoring event. [Extracted from the article]