Green Sea Turtle
Chelonia mydas
Photo: Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Found one?
Call it in
Stranded, injured or hooked? Call NOAA's hotline at (866) 755-6622 and keep people and pets back.
Illegal to take: Protected under the Endangered Species Act — never keep, harm or harass one.
Source: NOAA Fisheries — Sea turtles and recreational fishing ↗ · checked Sep 2026
Verifying against GBIF…
Conservation status
IUCN Red ListIUCN reassessed the global population as Least Concern in 2023 after decades of nesting-beach protection paid off. That is a global average — several regional subpopulations remain depleted, and the species stays fully protected under US law and CITES regardless of its Red List category.
What Least Concern means
Assessed as widespread and abundant. This describes the global population, not fishing pressure or legal protection.
Legally protected
Listed under the US Endangered Species Act and CITES Appendix I. Trade in turtle meat, eggs and shell is prohibited internationally.
On your plate
Do Not Consume
Harvesting, selling or eating green sea turtles is illegal across most of their range. Their recovery is the direct result of those protections staying in place.
Conservation status and seafood sustainability are two different questions. A species can be Least Concern globally and still be overfished, protected or unsustainable where you are.
Habitat
Shallow coastal waters, seagrass meadows, coral reefs and lagoons
Range
Tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans
Size
Up to 1.5 m shell length, 68–190 kg
Diet
Adults are almost entirely herbivorous — seagrass and algae
Lifespan
60–70 years, maturing at 20–50
Group
turtle
The only sea turtle that is largely herbivorous as an adult, and it is named for the green fat under its shell, not the shell itself.
Their grazing keeps seagrass meadows healthy — meadows that store carbon and shelter juvenile fish.
Females return to the beach where they hatched to nest, sometimes navigating thousands of kilometres to get there.
Try this instead
Sustainable seafood alternatives
Green Sea Turtle is protected and must not be taken. These are lower-impact choices that are not.