First loggerhead sea turtles hatch at Calblanque beach

The baby turtles have been taken to the wildlife recovery centre in El Valle and will be kept in captivity for a year

Only one in a thousand baby loggerheads survives to adulthood in the wild

The first loggerhead sea turtle eggs known to have been laid on a beach in the Region of Murcia since the late 19^th century have started to hatch, with 13 tiny turtles having emerged from the 69 eggs which were buried in the sand at Cala Arturo, in the Regional Park of Calblanque on the coastline of Cartagena.

The eggs were laid on 28th July and another three are reported to have started to hatch: they have all been taken, along with the new-born turtles, to the wildlife recovery centre in El Valle, in the mountains outside the city of Murcia, to ensure that as many as possible survive. Three of 69 eggs were taken to El Valle as soon as they were laid, but they were among the 38 which were found not to have been fertilized.

After the torrential rain which fell during the destructive “gota fría” storm of last weekend there had been fears that the cooler sand temperature might jeopardize the survival of the unborn loggerheads, and for a while the nesting site was protected under a tarpaulin cover. Despite this, two thermometers used by the 24-hour vigilance team at Cala Arturo detected a dangerous lowering of the temperature, and on Tuesday a team from El Valle arrived to remove the eggs and continue their incubation in a safe and controlled environment.

It was at this point that the experts discovered that the first 13 eggs had hatched, and that the new-borns were in apparently healthy condition.

They will now remain at El Valle for a few days before being transferred to the Marine Resources department of the Imida regional research body in San Pedro del Pinatar, and if more baby turtles hatch successfully they will be donated to the Oceanogràfic aquarium and marine biology research centre in Valencia.

In the wild, it is estimated that only one in a thousand loggerhead turtles survives to reach the age of a year, by which point they weigh between 1 and 1.5 kilos, and for this reason the new arrivals will be kept in captivity for 12 months before being released into the Mediterranean at the beach in Calblanque next summer.

One of the factors favouring the return to of loggerheads to lay their eggs on the Mediterranean beaches of Spain is the gradual rise in water temperatures. In recent years eggs have been found on the coast of the Comunidad Valenciana and the province of Almería, and this summer a nest was discovered for the first time in the Balearic Islands, specifically at the Playa d’en Bossa in Ibiza.

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