Marine Turtle 2022 Nesting Season Starts Late March, In Several Mexican Beaches

THE BAJA POST
NEWSROOM

The 2022 sea turtle nesting season begins in late March and early April, ending in August this year, with the arrival of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii), green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta ) and hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imdricata) to the beaches of northern Veracruz such as Tecolutla, Papantla, Cazones, Tuxpan and Tamiahua, reported the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp),

In the municipality of Tuxpan, meetings were held with the municipal authorities, residents of the communities of Villa Mar, Barra Galindo and Barra Norte of the Tortuguero Naku kayám camp to promote the installation of pens for the protection of nests and the dissemination of the Official Standard Mexican NOM-162-SEMARNAT-2012, which establishes the specifications for the protection, recovery and management of sea turtle populations in their nesting habitat.

On the beaches of Lobos-Tuxpan during 2021, 26 hawksbill and olive ridley turtle nestings were recorded, releasing a total of 706 hatchlings, with the hawksbill turtle being the most abundant, while on the Totonacapan beaches the total number of nestings recorded in the same season was 3,027, where the abundance of the green turtle predominated, in addition to the presence of olive ridley and hawksbill turtles. The total number of sea turtle hatchlings released on these beaches was 99 thousand 197.

As on the beaches of Veracruz, each year the arrival of sea turtles in Mexico is expected to lay eggs and complete a crucial stage of their life cycle, the incubation of their eggs and the birth of their young, and where a large number of people from communities, organizations, federal, state and municipal governments and institutions actively participate in their protection from nesting to release.

Six of the seven species of sea turtles in the world live in Mexico, since our country has suitable sites for these species to nest, grow and feed. All species are in the category of Danger of Extinction, since they were an important fishing resource until 1990 when the ban was established.

The conservation actions carried out in recent decades have made the populations of some of the species show signs of recovery, an example of this is the olive ridley turtle. In the 1980s, around 300,000 olive ridley nestings per season were recorded in the Playa de La Escobilla sanctuary, currently more than 1,200,000 are recorded on the same beach.

In the case of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, an endemic species from the Gulf of Mexico, whose main nesting area in the world is in the Playa Rancho Nuevo sanctuary in Tamaulipas, it recorded less than 1,000 nestings per season in the mid-1980s. They report around 10,000 nests per season. It should be noted that the migration zone of this species was not known worldwide until 1947, the date on which Rancho Nuevo Beach was found by chance and it was estimated that 47,000 females nested in a single day.

With these actions, Semarnat, through Conanp, reiterates its commitment to continue efforts to protect and recover sea turtles in the country in close collaboration with communities, tourism service providers, civil society organizations and research centers.