“The sea turtle, a symbol of environmental destruction, is now rebounding,” reports The Doomslayer:
A recent study found that out of 61 datasets on sea turtle abundance worldwide, just five showed a decline in population. Splitting the results by species is even more hopeful: for four of the six endangered sea turtle species, every dataset showed an upward or stable trend. For the remaining two, the leatherback and loggerhead, 75 percent and 92 percent of the datasets did, respectively.
“Annual nest numbers increased between 1980 and 2018 from around 4,000 to 16,000 for green turtles at Aldabra” in the island nation of Seychelles in the Indian Ocean “and between 2008 and 2020 from around 500 to 35,000 for loggerhead turtles in Sal” in the island nation of Cape Verde off the west coast of Africa, reports a peer-reviewed academic article. These were examples of increases “in sea turtle numbers globally,” “with significant upward trends” in 28 different major locations where sea turtles are found across the world.
“From Spain in the west to Cyprus in the east, the Mediterranean has witnessed a record rise in sea turtle nesting,” reported The Guardian. in September. In Greece, which hosts 60% of” loggerhead sea turtles nests, “the rebound has been phenomenal: from an average of 5,000 to 7,000 nests per year, since 2023 over 10,000 nests have been recorded annually.”
Sea turtles have also made a comeback in Florida. A record-breaking number of sea turtle nests were found on Anna Maria island in Florida’s Manatee County.
This year, sea turtles have been “been packing southwest Florida beaches with nests.” “Thousands of sea turtle hatchlings” have been “emerging from the sand and shuffling toward the ocean around Florida,” including 40 “leatherbacks from a Sanibel Island clutch laid by their mammoth mama on April 24. The rare and endangered leatherback can grow to seven feet and weigh a ton, making it the world’s largest species of sea turtle.”
“Fish and wildlife officials were thrilled last summer when nesting totals broke several records, including 133,941 loggerhead nests and 76,543 green turtle nests statewide in September, which surpassed the records from 2016 and 2017, respectively.” But in southwest Florida, over a thousand nests were wiped out when “Hurricane Idalia’s brush-by sent storm surge washing over the beach for hours,” devastating nests on Sanibel and Captiva islands.
