Management of these populations has generally focused on protection of eggs and hatchlings, perhaps because of their accessibility and ease of monitoring (Crouse et al., 1987). However, there has been increasing concern in recent years over the effectiveness of early stage protection, given limited resources for conservation (Crowder et al., 1994). Demographic models have shown that the large ju-venile and adult stages are most important for pop-ulation growth and should be the focus of future conservation efforts (Crouse et al., 1987; Crowder et al., 1994; Heppell et al., 1996). Focusing conservation ef-forts on the egg and hatchling stage would do less to ensure population maintenance and growth than enforcing the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs), which are trap-door devices that allow sea turtles to escape from shrimping nets (National Research Coun-cil, 1990). The incidental capture and drowning of large juveniles, subadults, and adults in shrimp trawls now accounts for more sea turtle deaths than all other human activities combined (National Research Coun-cil, 1990). Protection of eggs and hatchlings has been criticized as being a" half-way technology" in certain cases, since it may do nothing to mitigate the direct causes of decline of some turtle populations (Frazer, 1992). Hatchery programs may only serve to put more turtles into an environment in which it is increasingly difficult to survive (Frazer, 1992). Despite criticisms, the relocation of sea turtle nests to protected corrals remains a commonly used strategy around the world (eg, Blanck and Sawyer, 1981; Wyneken et al., 1988; Eckert and Eckert, 1990; Frazier, 1993). Eggs are removed from the natural nest either during or shortly after oviposition, placed in buckets or bags, and transported to a protected corral on the beach for incubation (Wyneken et al., 1988). Trans-plantation of nests to sites which are less conspicuous to predators is another commonly used method of nest protection (Stancyk et al., 1980). Ideally, time in transport and handling is kept to a minimum, especially between 36 h and 45 d after oviposition, to mitigate the effects of movement-induced mortality (Limpus et al., 1979; Parmenter, 1980; Blanck and Saw-yer, 1981; Wyneken et al., 1988). Hatchlings are re-leased soon after emergence at a variety of locations along the beach so as not to attract an excess of pred-ators to one area.

Many nesting beaches have extremely high rates of egg mortality (Stancyk et al., 1980; Hopkins et al. in Iverson 1991; Erk'akan 1993; Gil in Frazier, 1993). On certain beaches the level of egg mortality may even reach 100%(Blanck and Sawyer, 1981). We used a population model adapted from Crouse et al.(1987) and Crowder et al.(1994) in this paper to examine the effects of nest relocation on loggerhead turtle population growth with and without the use of TEDs, and quantify the level of in situ egg mortality at which nest relocation becomes essential for the continued survival of loggerhead populations. Estimates of hatching success of eggs in situ (ie, the percentage of surviving eggs that hatch, excluding those that were depredated or poached), hatching success of eggs relocated to corrals, and survivorship of eggs in situ (ie, the percentage of all eggs laid that survived to hatch, including those that were depre-dated or poached) were compiled from the literature,