Endangered turtles making comeback
Print Edition
Against the setting sun, the tiny turtles that have just hatched on Lara Beach, on the island of Cyprus, strain against the surf to reach the Mediterranean Sea and embark on their life’s journey.
And in 20 to 30 years, they’ll be back at this exact spot to lay their own eggs.
After being hunted to near extinction in the first half of the last century, the Mediterranean’s endangered Loggerhead and Green turtles are making a comeback thanks to pioneering conservation efforts, Cypriot marine biologists say.
When those efforts began in 1978, there were just 300 turtle nests on the island’s beaches where the reptiles return to lay their eggs. The population has grown to around 1,100 nests last year, said Andreas Demetropoulos, the founder and co-head of a turtle conservation program under the island-nation’s Fisheries and Marine Research Department.
That may not sound a lot, but with the turtles’ reproductive cycles stretching out as long as three decades, the results are “quite spectacular,” said Demetropoulos.
This increase is especially encouraging for the Green turtle, which lays its eggs in only two countries — Turkey and European Union member Cyprus. There are only about 1,500 female Green turtles, as opposed to 6,000 female Loggerhead turtles that lay eggs across the Mediterranean.
According to marine biologist and conservation program co-head Myroula Hadjichristophorou, Cyprus has 200-300 Green turtles who lay eggs while the number for Loggerheads is more than double that.
Turtles have been around for 200 million years on Earth but have called the Mediterranean home only for about 10,000 years, said Hadjichristophorou.
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