The Hatchlings

The Hatchlings

The rays of the sun heat the beach, warming the turtle’s eggs buried in the sand. The eggs develop in the nest. They are ready to hatch in about two months. The patchlings pick at their shells with a small, sharp point at the front of their snout—this particular part will disappear after hatching. The hatchlings crack their shells. All must hatch at almost the same time, for all must share the work to escape from the nest. The baby turtles scrape away at the sand overhead. The sand falls upon their empty shells, forming a platform that allows the hatchlings to rise. In a few days, they have scraped their way up to the roof of the nest. Then at night, or in the early morning, little dark heads and flippers wriggle out onto the beach. Two-inch long hatchlings crawl away and look for the sea.

Race To The Sea

The hatchlings sense the direction of the sea. The birghtness over the water attracts them. They stream from the nest and begin their race to the sea. Full of life, but defenseless, they struggle clumsily across the beach. Their shells are soft and offer little protection. Swift lizards attack them. Armies of crabs pick them off. Sea birds gather and catch the tiny turtles in their sharp beaks and feast on them. Few hatchlings make it to the water. And most of these will be eaten by fish: snappers, groupers, jacks, and sharp-toothed barracudas. Only one or two of the hatchlings may live. Where they go to spend their first year of life is a mystery. It is one of nature’s many secrets. Green turtles, for example, are not seen again until they are one year old when they are found feeding offshore in turtle grass beds. They are then as big as a dinner plate.

Where Sea Turtles Nest

Sea turtles nest in a wide, warm belt around the world. They all return to the same beach where they themselves hatched in order to lay their eggs when they reach maturity. This ability to swim sometimes thousands of kilometers to reach their beach of origin is still a mystery to the scientists who think that their sense of smell plays an important role in this. All sea turtles in the world—the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Pacific populations are endangered species. Turtle specialists think that sonme of the Mediterranean sea turtles migrate from the Atlantic whereas some only stay in the Mediterranean basin.

Conservationists and researchers try to determine sea turtle migration routes by placing special talgs on the turtles.

Sea Turtles? Or Turtle Products?

The sea turtle is disappearing. And once it is gone, it will be gone forever. One reason it is disappearing is because people use parts of turtles for food or, more often, to make different products. The hawksbill is prized for its carapace to make tortoiseshell combs, brush handles, eyeglass frames, buttons, hair clips, and jewelry. Hawksbill and green turtles are killed so they can be stuffed and hung on walls as decorations. Green turtles are slaughtered for their meat and in order to make turtle soup. The skin from the neck and flippers of greens and olive ridleys is made into leather for purses and shoes. Fat from turtle bodies is used in soaps and makeup creams. Instead of using plentiful resources for these products, the world’s few remaining sea turtles are taken.

Turtle Hunting

People who live near the shore have always hunted sea turtles to help feed their families. A fisherman might harpoon a sea turtle and take it home to eat. Groups of men netted sea turtles when they rose to breathe and brought them back to their villages for food. For years, when sea turtles were plentiful, such hunting seemed to have little effect on the numbers of turtles. But the demand for sea turtles kept growing. Money could be earned hunting and selling sea turtles. Money could be earned selling things made from turtles. Turtle hunting became profitable. So hunters took hundreds of turtles in the sea and even on the land, when they were nesting. Fewer and fewer sea turtles were left until they were almost all gone. Laws now protect sea turtles and forbid trade in turtle products. But not everyone obeys these laws.

Trawlers and Turtles

Commercial fishing boats around the world provide food from the sea for people. These vessels cruise coastal waters, dragging large nets along the sea bottom to gather in their catch. Trawling or scraping of the sea bottom is very detrimental to sea life in general because it destroys the breeding grounds of fish, shrimp and all marine life. Unfortunately, sea turtles are often caught accidentally in these nets. The great funnel-shaped nets of shrimp trawlers, for example, trap many loggerhead turtles. The turtles are swept along in the nets with the shrimp. They are not able to come up to the surface to breathe, and they drown. So the small numbers of sea turtles are reduced even further. A way has to be found to solve the problem. Shrimp fisherman along the southeastren coast of the United States are helping to find an answer. They are testing newly-designed nets that let the shrimp in but keep the turtles out.

No Place To Nest

A loggerhead turtle crawls from the sea to the edge of a beach in Side on the Turkish South Coast. She pauses. What does she see? Apartment houses and hotels take up much of the beach. Only a narrow strip of sand remains, and it is crowded with people. In some places cement has been poured across the sand clear to the edge of the water. There is no place for the turtle to nest. The turtle goes back to the sea and returns at night. Hundreds of lights shine out from windows. The beach is bright. Elsewhere, along the coast, another turtle finds a small, undeveloped piece of beach and lays her eggs. When they hatch, the young turtles crawl toward the brightness, but it is not the sea. It is the light of street lamps along a road that passes nearby. The hatchlings will die in the burning sun later that day. Once there were hundreds of miles of open shore for loggerhead sea turtles to nest on safely. It is different now.

From "Sea Turtles in every Aspect",
a publication of The Society for The Protection of Nature