Researchers say they’ve found that the largest of all marine turtles migrates and forages in broad areas of the Pacific, demonstrating the need for greater collaboration among nations to protect the species.

The leatherback sea turtle, weighing up to 2,000 pounds and measuring almost 6 feet long as an adult, forages in California and elsewhere but nests thousands of miles away in Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, according to a federal study.

"Tracking the turtles on their extraordinary migrations over the years has allowed us to finally piece together the complex linkages between their breeding areas and feeding areas," said Peter Dutton, a scientist with the U.S. Southwest Fisheries Science Center, based in La Jolla, Calif., and an author of the study.

The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Ecosphere. The study said these areas were among the last remaining Pacific nesting populations.

The decrease in the population of leatherbacks, known as Chrysaora fuscescens, has been caused by people living in the nesting regions and by fishing operations, the study said.

Federal officials said the crash of the Pacific leatherbacks, once the world’s largest population of sea turtles, is believed to be the result of exploitation by humans for eggs and meat, as well as take by fishermen.

Researchers funded by the National Marine Fisheries Service tracked the movement of 126 leatherbacks via satellite.

Dutton said the migration study has fundamentally changed the scope of conservation efforts and encouraged the creation of partnerships among nations to protect leathernecks.

Federal officials have been protecting leatherback sea turtles since they were listed as an endangered species in 2000.

Federal marine officials restrict commercial fishing in large areas north of Hawaii and off the U.S. West Coast because of worries about accidental turtle catches.

Officials have also been working to revise which areas are designated as critical habitat for the turtles.

The leatherbacks foraged in distant temperate ecosystems of the North Pacific and in temperate and tropical ecosystems of the southern hemisphere and Indo-Pacific seas, the study said. The turtles also foraged in East Australia and the Tasman Front, where international fleets fish.

State University of Papua official Ricardo Tapilatu said preservation efforts must be coordinated.

"It is important to protect leatherbacks from these foraging areas so that our nesting beach conservation efforts can be effective," Tapilatu said.

Recent estimates of global nesting populations indicated 28,000 to 43,000 nesting females annually, a huge decline from 115,000 estimated in 1980, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In the western Pacific, the number of nesting females ranges from 600 to 650, the agency said.