An endangered sea turtle was spotted by the Farallon Islands on Monday for the first time this year—and it was dead, entangled in crabbing gear left over from a previous season. “Every lost trap is a ticking time bomb for endangered wildlife,” said Geoff Shester, a member of the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group. “We need stronger measures to prevent and remove lost crab gear.” The Pacific leatherback sea turtle is recognized as the largest turtle species in the world and the one with the longest migration—swimming an average of 3,700 miles twice a year. From their home on beaches in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, leatherbacks undertake a remarkable journey to the waters off the Pacific coast, where they feed on jellyfish. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the turtle’s biggest threats are fishing gear, vessel strikes and climate change. The population off the California coast has declined by 90 percent over the past 30 years. Leatherback sea turtles were listed under the federal Endangered Species Act upon the law’s creation in 1973. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service designated critical habitat for leatherbacks in California, Oregon and Washington in 2012. The turtles are prone to entanglement in vertical fishing lines connecting surface buoys to fishing traps on the seafloor. If a turtle becomes entangled and cannot reach the surface to breathe, it will drown. An estimated 7,000 to 14,000 crab traps, or 5 to 10 percent of all traps, are lost each year. No whales have been found entangled so far this season, though at least three were found entangled last season. Commercial crabbing season was set to open on Nov. 4 but was delayed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife after nearly 70 humpback whales were observed off California’s coast. The season was delayed again on Nov. 17 and most recently on Monday, as whales continue to feed along the coast. The department will publish an update later this week. Recreational crabbers started on schedule but only with hoop nets and snares, which pose a lesser risk to marine life because they require fishermen to stay onsite and retrieve them after two hours. Several marine life advocacy groups cited this week’s entanglement incident as a reason why fishermen should be using pop-up, ropeless fishing gear—new technology that’s under development—rather than traditional methods. Andrea Treece, a senior attorney for the nonprofit Earthjustice and a member of the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, called the incident “a gut punch.” She added, “We also have solutions close at hand. We need swift and decisive action to prevent lost and abandoned fishing gear and speed up the development and use of pop-up gear that allows continued fishing and minimizes risk to leatherbacks, humpback whales, and other marine wildlife.”