U.S. declares 'critical habitat' protection for loggerhead turtles

By Harriet McLeod CHARLESTON S.C. (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday designated 685 miles (1,100 km) of beaches from Mississippi to North Carolina and 300,000 square miles (777,000 sq km) of ocean off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as critical nesting and roaming habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles. The joint ruling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is the largest critical habitat designation in U.S. history, environmentalists say. Scientists said the area is home to 70,000 to 90,000 nesting sites per year and comprises 84 percent of all known nesting areas for the large sea turtles.

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