So many baby turtles! They have all just been hatched, but the grayer ones are a little older than the blacker ones.
Albie:
We went to visit baby turtles that just got hatched at a station. There were two cats. People collected the turtle eggs from the beach to hatch them, so if the baby turtles didn’t absorb their yolk, they could help them absorb it.
Just hatched, and awaiting release to the sea!Volunteers collect thousands of turtle eggs from nests on the beach, and bring them back here to hatch, which takes 45 days from when the eggs were laid. Once they’re hatched, they return them to the sea. They bring them here so that they have a better chance of survival, and to protect them from poachers.Each box has around 120 turtle eggs, in three layers in sand. The temperature they’re kept at determines whether they’ll be boys or girls. Global warming means that there are now more female than male turtles hatching, so some people working with turtle eggs are trying to keep more at lower temperatures so that there will still be males. Otherwise, they won’t be able to reproduce and there will be no more turtles.
There’s a bigger girl population of turtles than of boys. That’s because the temperature the eggs are kept at makes them boys or girls, and now it’s getting hotter, so there are more girls.
So excited to see thousands of turtle eggs!What the boxes look like inside. The eggs stay in for 45 days and then they’re hatched.This box had a couple of eggs that were hatching and you can see the heads poking out!Baby turtle hatching!
When you throw plastic out, the turtles think it’s food and so they eat it and they die. I liked the turtle place.
My friend Cohen and I getting to hold the hatchlings
Noah:
We went to a place to see turtles and we got to touch turtles. We got to learn about what they do when they are in their nest and about their instinct of where and when to come back from the sea.
Just hatched and waiting to be released to the sea! Baby turtles are born with everything they need to know. They can already walk and swim and know how to get food. Something amazing is that if you put a baby turtle that’s just hatched on the ground, no matter where it is, it will turn itself around to face the sea and start walking in that direction!
Fun Fact: males usually never come back from the sea! Another fun fact: green sea turtles come back to sunbathe!
These are Olive Ridley turtles. They live for maybe 70-100 years.
Baby turtles start eating seagrass and then small sea creatures.
The turtles hatching!
The people at the turtle nursery said that if climate change keeps on happening then there will be too many males in one place and too many females in another place. We should also stop using so many plastic things so that turtles don’t die.
Noah and Albie’s adventures in Mexico! 