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From the 1960s through the 1980s sea turtle (Cheloniidae) populations in the Eastern Pacific, especially those of green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas), declined in abundance to the point of near extinction (Cliffton et al. 1982; Delgado-Trejo and Alvarado-Diaz 2012; Early-Capistrán et al. 2017; Plotkin et al. 2012; Seminoff et al. 2012a). Hunting of sea turtles from the mid-19th through the mid-20th century seems to have been one driver of this decline (Caldwell 1963; Conrad and Pastron 2014; Early-Capistrán et al. 2017; Nichols 2003; O’Donnell 1974), but previous studies have not explored the potential role of habitat change in the historic turtle population crash (Early-Capistrán et al. 2017; Plotkin et al. 2012; Delgado-Trejo and Alvarado-Diaz 2012).

As habitat change contributes to declining sea turtle abundance today (Hawkes et al. 2009; Saba 2012) and known sea surface temperature changes have occurred since the mid-19th century in the eastern Pacific Ocean (Douglas 1980), it is possible that changes in turtle diet, reflecting the habitat and sea surface temperature changes, contributed to sea turtle population declines in the 20th century. Research on this this topic has likely not occurred previously for two logistical reasons: a lack of credibly-dated historic zoological and zooarchaeological specimens; and difficulties in determining the correct taxon of those specimens, particularly those from archaeological sites. Whalers, mariners and maritime passengers, the primary groups hunting sea turtles during the 1800s, typically discarded turtle carcasses overboard in open water after consuming the animals (Conrad and Pastron 2014; O’Donnell …