Improved fishing nets have saved tens of thousands of endangered sea turtles in recent years, but 4,600 are still dying annually, mainly in Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawls, said a US study on Wednesday.
Turtle-excluder devices (TEDs), or large holes that allow the creatures to escape from nets that nab smaller marine creatures, have helped cut back on sea turtle deaths up to 94% since the 1990s, said the report in the journal Biological Conservation.