JURUTI, Pará state, Brazil — One of the little sand piles appears to be moving. Fábio Andrew Cunha opens the way with his hands, and a baby pitiú emerges from…
WESTERN PROVINCE, Kenya — In the 44 years Naomi Rita Sitati has lived in Bukirimo village in western Kenya, she has known only one system of farming, which her community…
PHNOM PENH — In late December 2023, on a remote island in Preah Sihanouk province, off the southwest coast of Cambodia, a team of conservationists uncovered nine nests belonging to…
A multidisciplinary team of researchers comparing bone samples from ancient turtles with skin samples from modern-day green turtles have been able to trace the “food footprints” of this endangered species.…
It was supposed to be a night like any other. Luis Crespo and his team would walk the beach of Maunabo, Puerto Rico, looking for leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea).…
Bangladesh has recorded the highest number of olive ridley turtle eggs laid on the country’s beaches this nesting season, thanks to extensive conservation actions. A survey by the NGO Nature…
Sometimes, our current mass extinction crisis can be represented by the loss of a single individual. On April 21, locals spotted a 93-kilogram (205-pound) body in the waters of Dong…
BAHÍA DE KINO, Mexico — For several years, Cosme Becerra was tasked with sacrificing a sea turtle to be eaten at a festival. In the mid-1990s, the fisherman received a…
KATHMANDU — In 2002, the black softshell turtle was declared extinct in the wild — not a difficult assessment to make, given that, back then, the only known population of…
Sea turtles lumber from ocean to shore to lay their eggs in the sand. In some places, this effort is protected by humans who patrol beaches on foot, warding off…
KATHMANDU — When conservationist Bed Bahadur Khadka roamed the banks of the Rapti River near Chitwan National Park to monitor gharials released from a breeding center in August 2020, he…
WEST SUMBAWA, Indonesia — “Gentlemen present in the room — have you ever eaten turtle eggs?” This was how Musyafirin, the head of West Sumbawa district in Indonesia’s West Nusa…
A hawksbill turtle’s protective shell is in some ways its greatest weakness. Exquisitely patterned and thick enough to sculpt, hawksbill shells are the most popular type of tortoiseshell, a material…
Before the inhabitants of Itsamia in Comoros decided to intervene, turtles arriving to nest on its beaches drew villagers from neighboring hamlets. Anywhere from 10 to 30 green sea turtles…
MARERENI, Kenya — One day in April, at a few minutes past six in the morning, the sun’s golden rays lit up the sea on Kenya’s coast. A few early-rising…
Conservation biologist Estrela Matilde has won the 2022 Whitley Award for her work to save sea turtles on the island of Príncipe in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. The awards, often…
New conservation efforts for critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles are starting to make a difference in the status of global hawksbill populations, although the continued illegal trade of tortoiseshell in…
Leatherback sea turtles run a gantlet of fishing lines and other human impacts during their annual migratory loop from Caribbean nesting grounds to the eastern coast of North America and…
Mayra Estrella’s father always spoke to her about sea turtles. Growing up, she remembers hearing stories linking a pair of turtles to the very existence of the Comcáac people, the…
On a late November day in the Kampong Seila district of Cambodia’s Preah Sihanouk province, 51 critically endangered freshwater turtles swam into the warm waters of the Sre Ambel River,…
POILÃO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau — On a moonlit night in September, hundreds of sea turtles have crawled out of the sea to nest on Poilão Island. A team of turtle monitors…
POILÃO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau — Castro Barbosa's eyes still light up when he recalls the first time he saw a sea turtle, in 1993. He was on a visit to Guinea-Bissau's…
As climate change worsens, sea turtles on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf seaboards, and in other coastal areas around the world, are increasingly at risk from cold-stunning events. But rescuers often await.
It’s six in the morning and the beach is empty. The tide has erased the footprints from the sand, and the surface is a blank slate of white and perfectly…
POILÃO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau — As night falls, the only lights visible on uninhabited Poilão Island are the nearly full moon and the eerie red glow beaming from a few headlamps.…
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,…
Within months of newly discovered species of snakes, geckos and turtles being described (along with their locations) by scientists, traders find and harvest the animals for sale on the Internet.
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…
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…