Human and Natural Impacts Human and Natural Impacts on the Population Reasons for the decline of sea turtle populations are numerous. At each stage of life, sea turtles encounter various hazards.
Threats can be either natural or human induced.
Natural mortality factors include disease, parasites, and predation of eggs, hatchlings and adults. High natural mortality is compensated for by the considerable amount of eggs laid each year at Rancho Nuevo. Females lay clutches of an average of 110 eggs, and most females nest twice during the season. This natural compensation did not take one predator into account, however, and that predator is man. Human induced factors have had a major impact on the Kemp's ridley's decline in numbers.