If there is a superstar at the Atlantic City Aquarium, it would be Grohman, a 200-pound loggerhead sea turtle. The 14 year-old reptile shares a 25,000-gallon tank with cownose rays, dogfishes and other Mid-Atlantic sea creatures, and has been highlighted in many discussions about sea turtles, the importance of protecting them, their habitats and the environment.
"He’s definitely one of the centerpieces," Christopher FitzSimmons, the Atlantic City Aquarium’s education assistant, said in an interview in late September. "And a lot of people don’t know you can find sea turtles in New Jersey."
Grohman’s wild counterparts, however, are not faring as well. Many loggerheads die when they are accidentally caught by commercial fisheries and three populations – including turtles in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean – are at a high risk of becoming extinct, according to the latest federal report commissioned by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The study, which was released in August, found all nine loggerhead turtle populations around the world could decline in the future. Several hundred loggerhead turtles per year are estimated to be caught by sea scallop trawlers between New York and North Carolina, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service study. Mid-Atlantic bottom trawlers killed about 616 sea turtles per year between 1996 and 2004, the study said.