Sea Turtles News

JAKARTA — “Do you need a plastic bag?” asks a store cashier. Bland as it may seem, that’s the kind of question that appears to be an effective nudge for…

All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Beaches across the planet emptied as COVID-19 spread in 2020, with the first full lockdowns in many places coinciding with sea turtle nesting season. With less noise,…

MATARA, Sri Lanka — The Polhena reef and the surrounding shallow seas in southern Sri Lanka are home to a number of marine turtles that stay there year round. Randunu…

For decades, scientists speculated that seagrass seeds served only as a backup to vegetative proliferation; they settled into the sand beneath their parent plants, ready to germinate if anything untoward…

After spending two months incubating in eggs, it’s time for green sea turtles to break out of their shells. The newly hatched reptiles scale the steep sides of their nests…

The United Nations Basel Convention regulates international transport of hazardous waste, which in 2021 expanded to include plastics. But the U.S. has never fully implemented the agreement; Biden may change that.

Clear-skied, low-wind summer days are rare off the coast of California. But they’re a blessing if you’re a researcher tracking down critically endangered leatherback sea turtles. Marine ecologists Scott Benson…

PUNE, India — A 58-page, undated “vision document” produced by an Indian government think tank outlines a concept for the “sustainable development” of Little Andaman Island. The rainforested and sparsely…

Many marine megafauna share a similar behavior of swimming in circles, often when in search of food, but also while engaged in a range of other activities, according to a…

In May, female turtles will start emerging from the Mediterranean onto the shores of Turkey, Greece and Libya, as well as onto islands such as Cyprus, Crete and Sicily. They…

All told, this was a pretty bleak year. The COVID-19 pandemic brought tragedy and confusion; fires razed parts of Australia, the Amazon, and the Western U.S.; and the world is…

Early on the morning of Sept. 16, 2018, an olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) hauled herself out of the ocean along a beach on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. Moving…

COLOMBO — Conservation experts in Sri Lanka have been left puzzled by a recent spate of marine turtle fatalities, where the animals’ bodies have washed ashore without any indications of…

When baby sea turtles hatch from their eggs, they skitter across the sand to the shoreline before disappearing into the open ocean. Many years later, by some remarkable feat, female…

Social distancing has become part of the routine for Liessi Calero and Darling Delgado, park rangers who protect turtles in Nicaragua, the only country in Central America that has not…

Turtles and tortoises in trouble  On the island of Madagascar, locked gates, razor-wire fences, and 24-hour armed guards protect one of the world’s rarest treasures. That treasure, worth roughly $50,000…

From high above, the blue sea looks like it’s speckled with tiny white dots. But a closer look reveals more: each dot is actually a sea turtle swimming toward the…

In 2018, something extraordinary happened in Phuket, Thailand. For the first time in five years, a leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) crept onto a local beach, dug a nest in the…

BUTUAN CITY, Philippines — Villagers in the southern Philippines taking part in an initiative to protect turtle nesting sites have recorded their most successful season in recent years, with nearly…

It was one of the worst environmental disasters the world has witnessed. Ten years ago, on April 20, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, killing 11 people and…

In late February, a three-legged turtle nicknamed Futura was released back into the sea by caregivers at the Sea Turtle Recovery Center of Brancaleone in Italy. Futura, a loggerhead sea…

MISAMIS ORIENTAL, Philippines — For hundreds of years, the lives of fisherfolk along the sleepy coastal villages in the town of Candiis in the Philippines’ Misamis Oriental province have been…

Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean famous for its turquoise waters, giant tortoises and wondrous birds, has extended protection to 400,000 square kilometers (154,000 square miles) of its seas,…

In late 2018, researchers announced that they had found synthetic particles like microplastics in the intestinal tracts of every single sea turtle they’d studied in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans…

MANILA — Governments across Southeast Asia have vowed to strengthen cooperation in curbing the illegal wildlife trade, suspected to have sparked the novel coronavirus epidemic. The issue will be at…

DAVAO, Philippines – On August 4, 2018, a fisherman found an endangered green turtle (Chelonia mydas) floating weakly in the Davao Gulf, a diverse marine ecosystem and rich fishing ground spanning 308,000…

In myths and carvings, sea turtles are reverent creatures, carrying wisdom and worlds on their backs. In Hindu cosmology, the earth is supported by four elephants on the back of…

COLOMBO — The Sri Lankan Navy has rescued 32 sea turtles that were likely being reared for their flesh, highlighting just one of the key threats to turtles migrating through…

Around 400 people spread out across the coastline of a beach in the Lekki neighborhood of Nigeria’s commercial city, Lagos. Hands in gloves and some faces partly covered by disposable…