Responding to a local request to study whether the green sea turtles of Hawaii could be removed from threatened classification, U.S. wildlife officials have said, no, the species should not be removed. The turtles should continue under this classification, they said, because, at less than 4,000, the population is small. Also, almost all nest in the same location, in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands French Frigate Shoals, a low-lying atoll halfway between the major Hawaiian islands and Midway Islands.

Such a concentrated geography is too risky, said Patrick Opay, the chief of endangered species at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office. He said that having “all of your eggs in one basket” makes the reptiles vulnerable to rising sea levels and disease outbreaks.

Chelonia mydas eat mostly algae and seagrass. They are known for migrations of thousands of miles between feeding areas and nesting beaches. Females lay eggs at the same beaches they were born on.

It was in 2012 that the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs originally called upon the U.S. Government to look at whether the species might be strong enough to no longer require listing under the Endangered Species Act. The group wanted to get more people involved in taking care of the turtles and a delisting could do this by moving supervision of the animals to the state of Hawaii. The group cited data from 2007 that showed the turtle population had been growing 5.7 percent over previous three decades.

The study, which was conducted by NOAA as well as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, looked not only at Hawaii’s green sea turtles but also around the world. Including the one in Hawaii, eleven distinct populations were identified. Green sea turtles in Mexico and Florida were actually determined to be strong enough to be re-classified from endangered to threatened. On the other hand, the proposals say that turtles in the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, previously classified as threatened, should now be categorized as endangered.

Public comment on the proposals will be accepted until June 22. A public hearing is scheduled for April 8 in Honolulu on April 8.