"WASHINGTON — Across 685 miles of beaches from North Carolina to Mississippi, loggerhead sea turtles now swim in federally protected waters.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday designated those coastlines, as well as 300,000 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, as a critical habitat for this endangered turtle species, the largest federal protection of its kind. Already afforded several protections as an endangered species, the turtle is now further protected because the critical-habitat classification limits how federal agencies can use the region."

Stephanie Haven reports for the McClatchy Washington Bureau July 9, 2014. [2]