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[00:00.41] Now, just as scientists are beginning to fully understand these unusual creatures, the turtles are quickly disappearing.

[00:11.83] Similar population decreases have also been documented at beaches where leatherbacks nest on the western Pacific.

[00:22.72] Scientists say that if nothing changes, the leatherbacks could completely disappear from the U.S. West Coast within 30 years.

[00:35.47] The population drops are mainly blamed on international fishing activities, the destruction of nesting grounds and climate change.

[00:47.96] “The turtles were there and we finally started paying attention,” said Jim Harvey, director of San Jose State University's Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

[01:01.77] He was a co-writer of the new study. “We got into looking at the story just as the story was ending,” Harvey told the AP.

[01:14.52] The study provides important information, but also shows the threats the leatherbacks face, said Daniel Pauly, a fisheries professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

[01:31.26] Pauly, who was not involved in the study, is an international expert on the effects of fishing on ocean ecosystems.

[01:43.47] The animals can be killed when they get trapped in fishing equipment.

[01:49.32] Scientists say the population is also harmed because a lot of turtle eggs are removed from beaches.

[01:59.68] Researchers say that while all the world's leatherbacks are under pressure, the group that migrates for months across the Pacific faces the greatest threats.

[02:13.49] “If you find the decline in one place, that might have a number of causes, but if you find the same estimate of decline in two places that is something much more serious,” Pauly said.

[02:31.02] He added that the sea turtles “are really in big trouble.”

[02:36.33] NOAA launched an aggressive plan to save leatherbacks in 2015 and is set to release a new action plan this month.

[02:48.02] The plan is meant to persuade governments and international organizations to join efforts to save the turtles.

[02:58.11] Benson, the NOAA ecologist, said there is still time to stop the decrease, but that it will require an immediate, international effort.

[03:10.07] “If nothing is done to reverse this course, this population will become … extinct in the Pacific Ocean."