ARCHIVED - Turtle comes ashore in La Manga but leaves without laying eggs
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The tortuga boba was sighted on the playa de Eurovosa in La Manga
In the early hours of Saturday morning a large adult female loggerhead turtle came ashore on the beach of Eurovasa in La Manga del Mar Menor and was spotted scratching in the sand by a tractor driver, engaged in cleaning the beach at the time.
He immediately stopped the machine and called the the environmental services who hurried to the scene.
Staff from the Centro de Recuperación de Fauna de El Valle, the wildlife recovery centre on the outskirts of Murcia city checked the sand, but the turtle had disappeared, failing to lay any eggs in her “scratchings”.
Unfortunately the area she chose was very close to the shore with little sand and on this occasion there were no eggs, but she's off the coast somewhere and is obviously thinking about laying, so she may come ashore somewhere else in the near future.
At the moment beach operatives are on full alert for turtles as it’s peak egg laying season and hopes are high that there may be a repeat of the first eggs in a hundred years which hatched last year, yielding 21 precious baby turtles.
There are so many factors which minimise the chances of baby turtles making it from the egg to adulthood, and only 1 in 1,000 babies reaches maturity.
Last year’s 21 baby turtles were hatched in an incubator and are being reared at the Marine Aquiculture centre in San Pedro del Pinatar and the Centro Oceanográfico in Valencia within the international “head starting” programme, the idea being that the turtles are released when they are around 1 year old and of a suitable size to greatly increase their chance of survival as part of a bid to re-establish loggerhead populations along the Mediterranean coastlines of Spain.
The message this year is the same as last year; turtles must be allowed peace and quiet and nothing should be done to disturb them: the best course of action is to keep your distance, ensure that others do the same and alert the authorities by calling the 112 emergency services line so that staff from the Wildlife Recovery Centre in El Valle can take charge of the situation.
On no account attempt to touch them or use flash photography, and where possible avoid appearing in their line of sight and making loud noise.
If you see any tracks in the sand, call the same number.
To this end leaflets are to be distributed to beachgoers at libraries, supermarkets and beach bars, under the headline of “¡Caretta a la Vista!”.
Until recently it was rare, although not unheard-of, for loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) to lay eggs on the beaches of Spain, but in recent years there have been three or four such instances per year, and one of the reasons is likely to be the rise in sea temperatures. In order to reproduce, the species requires a water temperature of between 22 and 24 degrees, and then the ideal conditions in which to bury and incubate eggs in the sand include a temperature of around 29 degrees at a depth of 40 centimetres.
Until a couple of decades ago those conditions simply didn’t exist in Spain, or at best were very infrequent, but over the last 17 years more than 30 nestings have been reported in this country, and experts believe that the “best” beaches for such events are those of Alicante, Murcia and Almería. This is because they prefer wide beaches with fine sand and little in the way of tides, perfect conditions for which can be found along our own coastline.
Join the Mar Menor group on Facebook for info about Los Alcázares, San Javier, San Pedro del Pinatar, Torre Pacheco, La Unión and Cartagena and keep up to date with all the latest news and events in the Mar Menor: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MarMenorNewsAndEvents/
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