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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The statistics show you want to make sure the adults reproduce. The amount of offspring that survive isn’t much of a factor.
And/or, why not keep and raise thousands of hatchlings for a year so they have a better chance of survival? Volunteers would get on board that idea!
I’m sure you are far from the first to wonder this. I think it’s a misconception that nature documentaries led us to.
They show the hatchlings scrambling to the sea, stating they need to avoid predators. Then they play dramatic music, and the narrator says only a few will make it to adulthood, all while a bird eats a baby turtle. On top of that, when they show the babies making it, the music/narration gives a tone of relief.
So even though they don’t explicitly says most baby turtles die, because they don’t make it to the water, they heavily imply it. Most likely for dramatic effect.
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.
The people over at [Sea Turtle Inc.](https://seaturtleinc.org/about/) down in South Padre Island, TX go to great lengths in the conservation of sea turtles.
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