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Click HereIt’s proving to be a good summer for baby turtles!
Last year 21 turtles were hatched, from the first loggerhead turtle eggs known to have been laid in the region for more than a century and hopes were high this year that the same turtle might return to the region to lay again, or that other females might be lured by the warming waters of the Mediterranean to nest on the Murcian coastline.
So there was great excitement, when, after two false alarms, a turtle came ashore and successfully laid 100 eggs in a nest on the playa Ensenada del Esparto (San Javier), at km.14 of La Manga del Mar Menor.
The eggs were carefully dug up and reburied further back to make sure they would be safe from thieves or natural disasters, and carefully enclosed in a protective fenced area to ensure that they would be safe and that should they hatch, the precious hatchlings could be taken to a safe location in which they could grow to around a kilo in weight before being released into the Mediterranean.
Only one in a thousand hatchlings will reach adulthood and their lives are becoming increasingly perilous as we choke the seas with plastic waste, discarded fishing equipment and race around on jetskis and in boats, all of which can easily, and frequently do, kill turtles.
The environmental department of the region works as part of the “headstart programme” the idea being to give young turtles a head start in life by taking them up to around a kilo, which is generally when they’re about one year old, in order to help them bypass the many dangers facing them when they are at their youngest and most vulnerable.
When the eggs were laid, 90 were reburied on the beach in the hope that the turtles would remember where they were born (it’s incredible that female turtles will travel several thousand miles and return to exactly the same area to lay again) and as a precaution, 10 were taken to the El Valle Wildlife Recovery Centre and put in an incubator.
At the beginning of the week, three of the incubated eggs hatched, so staff at the centre knew that the birth of the remainder was imminent and on Thursday evening 40 of the buried eggs opened, 56 days after being laid.
General director of the Natural Environment, Fulgencio Perona, said that, ”yet more eggs could hatch in the next two or three days” as turtle eggs generally take between 50-80 days to hatch, so conceivably there could be even more.
The birth of the hatchlings was streamed online through youtube, via two surveillance video cameras which have been broadasting images of the nest 24 hours a day.
These young turtles, which measure only around 6cm at brth and weigh a tiny 17 grammes, will grow up at the Murcian Institute for Agricultural Research and Development. and Alimentario (IMIDA), in San Pedro del Pinatar, enjoying a diet of “fish porridge” to begin with, followed by larger pieces of fish as they mature.
The 2019 hatchlings will be released soon
The 21 hatchlings laid in 2019 are nearing the end of their year in captivity and will soon be released.
They were split into two groups to ensure that should there be any problems, the risk would be minimised, 11 remaining at the IMIDA, in San Pedro del Pinatar, and the remainder transferred to the Oceanographic in Valencia.
All of the turtles have now been transferred to the 'Arca del Mar', in the Valencian research center, undergoing a “turtle training school” programme of adaptation to the marine environment before being released, soon, on the coasts of the Region of Murcia.
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