Why do some animals, like sea turtles and salmon, lay eggs away from their natural habitat?

Question

This might be a strange question, but why do sea turtles lay eggs on land and not for example dig up holes inside the ocean? They live their whole lives in the ocean, so why do they lay eggs on land? Why travel so far just to lay eggs?

Same goes for some salmon, why do they leave the oceans and lakes, and go upstream on rivers and not lay their eggs where they live?

It is probably something to do with protecting their offspring, but it seems to me that they still have predators that hunt their offspring fairly easily where they hatch/lay their eggs, so maybe there is another reason as well?

In: 146

Answer 1

I don’t know about fish, but turtles lay their eggs in sand so the embryos can breath. Sea turtles have to come up for air every so often.