Menorca welcomes over 60 surprise turtle hatchlings
Thursday, September 10, 2020 @ 2:19 PM
More than de 60 baby loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) hatched in Cala Pilar (Ciutadella) this weekend from an egg lay that the local environmental authorities were completely unaware of. The turtles were born in the sand and a large proportion of them had already made it to the sea when the nest was found.
Representatives of the Balearic Islands' Consortium for the Recuperation of Fauna (Cofib) and members of the Environment Agency went to the beach and opened the nest to check for hatchlings trapped inside, as well as to calculate the size of the lay and to take samples for genetic studies.
They found 27 live baby turtles still inside the nest which had not yet emerged onto the sand, and which, according to specialists, probably wouldn't have been able to do so without Cofib's intervention.
They also found five dead hatchlings, six nonviable eggs and a further eight viable eggs, which have been transferred to an incubator for their own safety. In total, 62 hatched eggs were found, so they estimate around 30 turtles will have made it to the sea.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com