Two olive ridley sea turtles turned up on Southern California beaches and did something never recorded on the US West Coast. They laid eggs.
The Los Angeles Times reported that one female came ashore at Seal Beach, dug a nest, laid her eggs and returned to the sea. Three days later, another turtle nested about 13 kilometres north at Huntington Beach.
The species has large breeding colonies in Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua, but had not been seen nesting in California, according to the report.
“I have been expecting to see subtropical species present off the coast of Southern California, which is typical during El Niños,” Lindsey Peavey Reeves, a senior scientist with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times. “However, I wasn’t expecting to see olive ridley sea turtles nesting in Orange County.”
After the Huntington Beach nest was found, the Huntington Beach Fire Department’s Marine Safety unit contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Staff put mesh over the eggs and set up a cordon to keep people back.
Los Angeles Times reporter Corinne Purtill wrote that if the eggs hatched, the young turtles “will become the first known sea turtles to start their lives in California waters”.
Three days later, Purtill reported that wildlife officials moved the eggs after forecasts showed extreme high tide and weather linked to hurricanes could destroy the nests at Huntington and Seal beaches.
The report said officials from NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service recovered 204 eggs from the two nests and packed them in sand-filled polystyrene coolers before taking them by car to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
“We had to make some quick decisions,” Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Jonathan Snyder said at the aquarium on Friday. “This is the decision that we made, and I think it’s the best one for species recovery.”
The eggs were placed in climate-controlled incubators designed to mimic beach sand conditions, according to the report. The Los Angeles Times said it is not clear if the eggs will be viable.
Purtill reported that back-to-back marine heatwaves south of the border are one hypothesis for why the turtles arrived in California.
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