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Date Published: 05/10/2021
ARCHIVED - Dozens of sea turtles released in Andalusia, Tarragona and Ibiza
Many of the turtles, including the hatchlings released in Andalucía, carry transmitters so scientists can monitor their progress
The number of sea turtles spawning on the beaches of the Spanish Mediterranean, while still very low, has been increasing in recent years due in no small part to the warming of the oceans as a result of climate change. This is not without its challenges, however, as the number of females being born far exceeds their male counterparts, and so the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge has been supporting an initiative which keeps the baby turtles safe until they are one year old, before releasing them back into the wild.
This summer alone, at least six new endangered loggerhead turtle nests were discovered in Spain, and in recent days, almost 60 turtles have been returned to the beaches where they were born in Marbella, Tarragona and Ibiza. Most of the specimens are equipped with satellite transmissions, which allow scientists to track the youngsters during ‘the lost years’ – so called because so little is currently known about their early stages of life at sea. It is believed that spawning females will most likely return to the beaches where their nests were found, thus promoting the conservations of the species on the Spanish coast.
Although the Spanish Mediterranean coast has not so far been a frequent nesting area for sea turtles, the number of loggerheads nesting has expanded and now also includes the western Mediterranean -Italian, French and Spanish and North African coasts. Only one in a thousand loggerhead hatchlings will reach maturity and increasing pollution has endangered their journey further, but scientists now believe that the reptiles are learning to adapt and that their reproductive cycle is changing due to global warming.
Thanks to the SeaTurtle monitoring web platform, the journey of the tagged turtles will now be fully visible on the internet and the scientific community hopes that the initiative will garner information to further promote their conservation.
Image: ANSE
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