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ARCHIVED - Excitement as 100 turtle eggs are laid on the beach in la Manga del Mar Menor
90 of the eggs have been transferred to a nest in a more secure area of the beach and 10 to an incubator in the regional wildlife recovery centre.
There is considerable excitement amongst those working to conserve the population of loggerhead turtles in the Mediteranean at the news that 100 eggs have been laid on a beach in la Manga del Mar Menor this week.
Recently there have been two failed attempts at egg laying, with the tantalising trails in the sand showing that turtles have come ashore and had a scratch around before deciding to leave the beach; one of these was witnessed by a beach cleaner in the middle of the night, and hopes were high that the females concerned would return and lay.
Last year the first turtle nest in 100 years was found on a beach in the region and 21 precious baby turtles were hatched from that clutch of eggs. These are growing healthily in the installations of the Oceanographic Centre of san Pedro del Pinatar and in Valencia, and will hopefully be released at the end of the summer having reached a weight of around 1 kilo.
This turtle came ashore in the early hours of Thursday morning and laid 100 eggs in a hole dug in the sand, which were discovered by volunteers working within the programme currently underway within the region to try and protect this vulnerable species from its worst enemy; ourselves.
The loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) is classified as “vulnerable” in the Spanish Catalogue of Threatened Species and as “in danger” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Among its main threats are the ingestion of plastics and different types of flotation debris, their accidental capture in fishing nets, the entanglement of drifting fibers or lines and, to a lesser extent, collision with boats or the destruction and alteration of nesting beaches.
Turtles are regularly found off the Murcian coastline and those which can be saved are taken to the regional wildlife recovery centre for nursing and subsequent release. It’s heartbreaking to see the images of turtles completely entangled in fishing nets, with raffia bags wrapped around their necks, their shells shredded by outboard motors or just floating on the surface starving to death with their stomachs full of plastic waste, but that’s the price they pay for our activities; only one in a thousand loggerhead turtles will reach adulthood, hence the protection programme to give them a “headstart in life” by taking them up to one year of age in controlled conditions.
A gradual rise in water temperatures in recent years has caused more turtles to return to Spanish beaches and eggs have been found on the coast of the Comunidad Valenciana, the province of Almería and the Balearic Islands as well as Murcia last year.
Once found the eggs are normally taken into protection for incubation and the young turtles are kept in captivity for around a year before being released.
Whenever possible, eggs are left on the beach on which they are found in order to ensure that when they hatch the hatchlings have some instinct for the beach on which they were born; we still don´t understand how some of the miracles of the natural world work, but it’s common for animals, mammals and birds to have an inherent sense of where “home “ is, and it is hoped that by leaving the eggs on the beach that this may in years to come bring turtles back to this same spot to perpetuate the circle of birth.
The eggs were moved by staff from the regional wildlife recovery centre, the Centro de Recuperación de Fauna Silvestre de El Valle, in collaboration with colleagues from the Universidad de Valencia and Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, who are also involved in the “headstart programme” to a safer location about 500 metres from the site of the original test so that they can be watched by volunteers in the hope that they hatch.
As a precaution, 10 were put in an incubator in the wildlife recovery centre.
Personnel from Protección Civil will watch over the nest during beach management hours and environmental agents and guards contracted by the Department of the Environment, will take the night shift, making sure there is 24 hour vigilance over the precious clutch.
And now we wait………
If you do see a trail in the sand, or encounter a laying turtle don´t touch, try not to disturb the turtle and call 112. Last week a youngster in Cataluña received a stiff fine for videoing herself cuddling a turtle which had come ashore to lay, and rejected her affection by disappearing off without leaving any eggs, much to the chagrin of volunteers desperate to secure eggs on Catalan beaches. Posting it on social media alerted them to the fact that the turtle had come ashore and been prevented by the young lady concerned, who was more worried about taking selfies of herself with a turtle than the conservation issues involved…….humans!
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