Since Sea Turtles are Endangered, Why Can’t We Just Help Ensure the Majority of Hatchlings make it into Water Instead of 1 in 1,000?
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My wife and I volunteer for a turtle patrol on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. I can offer some answers based upon our observations here.
For nests that successfully hatch, most of the babies make it out to sea. We do post-hatch data gathering where we excavate the nests to count the number of turtles who hatch (empty shells), the number of unfertilized eggs (clear inside), spoiled eggs (dark inside), and any babies that hatched and didn’t make it to the surface. Most eggs do hatch. Recent excavations this year had overall nest sizes (these were green turtle nests) averaging 120 eggs. Average successful hatchings was around 110.
Most turtles that hatch (here) make it to the ocean. We don’t have many predatory birds here. I’ve actually never seen any birds poaching turtles at the hatchings we’ve witnessed and it’s rare to find a hatchling that didn’t make it to the ocean. Once they are in the ocean my experience ends.
We do lose entire nests occasionally but I don’t have the exact numbers. Biggest contributors to that are animals (dogs are the biggest offender, but mongooses are also bad here), people, and Mother Nature (salt water intrusion and nests washing away during storms).
The good news is that we still see thousands of turtles nesting here each season. A large nesting beach is closed off during peak turtle season and the annual numbers there are growing.
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