This video from the USA says about itself:
High quality rare video of baby loggerhead sea turtles hatching out of a nest and running across a Sarasota, Florida beach and into the Gulf of Mexico during the night of September 26, 2006. Video shot with permission using invisible infrared red light to prevent any effect on the turtles.
All marine turtle footage taken in Florida was obtained with the approval of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) under conditions not harmful to these or other turtles. This hatch occurred during a significant Red Tide outbreak (Karenia brevis algae bloom) and the baby turtles had to climb over some dead fish killed by the red tide in order to reach the water.
From The News in Pakistan:
Loggerhead Turtles nesting in Pakistan
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Islamabad
After two turtle species already nesting in Pakistan, a third one, the Loggerhead Turtle species, has also been confirmed in Pakistan.
Renowned turtle expert Nicolas J Pilcher, who was in Pakistan for a seminar on threats to the turtles in Pakistan, has confirmed that a third species of turtles, the Loggerhead was also nesting on Karachi shores.
Until now the only two species recorded nesting in the country were the green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and a smaller number of Olive Ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea). By far, the most widespread nesting is by the green turtle, from the eastern shores of Sindh all the way to the western shores of Balochistan.
Recent findings by the IUCN Pakistan team, under the auspices of the Balochistan Partnerships for Sustainable Development Project, have documented this third species, the Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) nesting at Daran beach, some 11 km South East of Jiwani.
Positive identification of the adults and hatchlings was made by Dr. Nicolas Pilcher, Co-Chair of the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group, and a long time turtle researcher and conservationists. Some sixty nests were recorded during 2009, and the work will expand in the coming months to determine, just how extensive is this nesting.
Loggerheads are known to nest in large numbers in Oman, on Masirah Island, and a small number nest in Yemen, but this is the first record of Loggerhead nesting in Pakistan. This latest discovery expands the nesting range for Loggerheads and raises their survival outlook, in a climate where critical nesting habitats are being rapidly eaten up by development.
The discovery also manifest the known diversity of wildlife in Pakistan as well as its richness to host rare species. Pakistan used to host substantial numbers of Olive Ridleys along the shores of the Sindh province, but most of these have ceased coming in to nest. Commercial fisheries are the main reason for this decline; with over 1900 active trawlers operating just offshore, turtles have been accidentally lost to fishing nets.
Trawling for shrimp and fish is known as one of the major causes of sea turtle mortality. Luckily for the Loggerheads, Sindh-based commercial fisheries do not generally operate as far away as the western end of Balochistan, and have avoided the threats. Turtles can be saved from drowning in fishing nets through the use of Turtle Excluder Devices, clever adaptations to nets, which allow fish and shrimp to enter the net and for turtles to escape through a special opening. For the past several decades marine turtle conservation programs have been underway in Pakistan. Most noticeable is the work undertaken in the Sindh Province, on Sandspit and Hawkes Bay, where thousands of turtles have been protected through hatchery enclosures.
‘Less than 1000 turtles left on Pakistan’s shores’ – The Express Tribune: here.
ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2010) — Spanish scientists have studied interactions between the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) and fishing gear such as longline hooks used at the water surface, mass beachings, and the effects of climate change on these animals. In order to reduce captures of this marine species without causing economic losses for fishermen, the scientists are proposing that fishing in the summer should only be carried out by night and in areas more than 35 nautical miles from land: here.
ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2010) — With loggerhead sea turtle nests in dramatic decline, researchers would love to know more about where the turtles go, and what they eat, so they can better protect the creatures’ habitat: here.
This is a loggerhead turtle video from Australia.
Help a turtle out – support loggerhead protection: here.
Loggerheads are more than threatened – they’re endangered. Let’s call it like it is: here.
Related articles
- Loggerheads, green sea turtles start laying eggs in Hatay (worldbulletin.net)
- Why Female Loggerhead Turtles Return to Their Place of Birth (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
- A Picture A Day, Day 14 – Caretta Caretta (petrovskyz.wordpress.com)
- Sea Turtle Nests Hit A Record In Georgia (wctv.tv)
- Turtle Tagged in Mexico in 2005 Resurfaces in Japan (natureworldnews.com)
- 2013 already strong for sea turtle nesting in Ga. (onlineathens.com)
- Another Caretta-Caretta Turtle Found Dead (greece.greekreporter.com)
- Volunteers Form Human Wall to Guide Baby Turtles to Sea (twistedsifter.com)
- Early Pinellas sea turtle numbers are encouraging (TBO.com)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Contractor may have to pay for turtles
Reported by: Glenn Glazer
Email: gglazer@wptv.com
Last Update: 2/23 3:34 pm
JUNO BEACH, FL– Crews moved the pipes a little farther north today in Juno Beach to continue the areas nine million dollar beach renourishment project.
The project was supposed to be finished by the end of February to avoid turtle nesting season which starts at the beginning of March. But a combination of cold weather, rough seas, and mechanical problems delayed the project considerably.
Officials say that the project might not be finished until early April.
Because the project will continue during the beginning of turtle nesting season, the contractor will have to pay for twenty-four hour a day “turtle monitoring” on the parts of the beach that have not been renourished.
If any turtles do lay eggs in those areas, the eggs will be moved by officials to safe parts of the beach.
The “turtle monitoring” will cost the contractor about $1200 per day.
http://www.wptv.com/content/news/northpbc/junobeach/story/juno-beach-renourishment-turtle-nesting-season-dre/kiPrRd-nSUGyLZrkAPGiNA.cspx
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Turtles fight back as foxes are outfoxed
April 2, 2010
Outfoxing foxes has resulted in many more baby turtles being given a chance at life in central Queensland.
Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones said fox-baiting programs have led to a dramatic turnaround in the marine turtle populations in the Bundaberg region.
“Since comprehensive fox-baiting programs were introduced we’ve seen a remarkable turnaround,” Ms Jones said.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s as many as 90 per cent of turtle nests were destroyed by foxes.
Less than five per cent of nests now fall victim to the feral dogs, Ms Jones said.
During the latest nesting season at the protected turtle hatchery of Mon Repos staff and volunteers recorded about 1600 turtle nests with about 200,000 eggs laid.
“No clutches were destroyed by foxes along the Woongarra Coast this year,” Ms Jones said.
“A few hatchlings were eaten on the beach by foxes.
“Without fox control, large numbers of these nests would not have survived and most of the eggs would have been destroyed.”
The Bundaberg coast, south of the Burnett River, hosts the eastern Australian shoreline’s biggest population of nationally threatened marine turtles including loggerhead, flatback and green turtles.
Mon Repos beach on the Bundaberg coastline also supports the largest loggerhead turtle population within the South Pacific Ocean region.
Ms Jones said the benefits of the fox baiting program would be seen on the adult turtle population over the next decade.
“Loggerhead turtles take 30 years to mature so the impact of protecting turtle nests from foxes in 1990 will not be seen on the nesting beaches with increased numbers of resulting adults until one generation later, in about 2020,” she said.
AAP
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Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:26:29 GMT
By : dpa
Category : Nature (Environment)
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain – A loggerhead sea turtle has crossed the Atlantic in five months, a Spanish nature foundation said Wednesday.
The turtle, named Aurora, was captured in the Canary Islands and a signal transmitter was placed on its 53-centimetre-long shell in July 2009.
The turtle later embarked on an Atlantic crossing during which its movements were followed over a satellite.
Aurora has now arrived in the eastern part of the Caribbean, after having travelled more than 6,000 kilometres, according to the Environmental Observatory of Granadilla on Tenerife Island.
Aurora is the first turtle captured in the Canaries whose movements have been recorded during a transatlantic crossing.
However, such crossings are not rare for marine turtles, which travel long distances when they are young and often return to their native areas to breed.
Aurora’s crossing to the Americas could thus indicate that she was born there, the foundation said.
The loggerhead turtle, which is among the world’s best-known sea turtles, can weigh up to 160 kilograms.
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Regional sea turtle survey recaptures first sea turtle ever rehabilitated by the South Carolina Aquarium
The long-term value of rehabilitating sea turtles was substantiated on July 5th, when the first loggerhead rehabilitated at the South Carolina Aquarium was recaptured nearly 10 years after it was released from what has developed into a full-fledged Sea Turtle Hospital.
This loggerhead, dubbed “Stinky” by the Aquarium’s animal care staff, was recently recaptured a few miles off central Georgia by the R/V Georgia Bulldog during a regional turtle trawl survey managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). Between release and recapture, Stinky’s weight increased from 103 to 176 pounds and his length grew by five inches, which is a normal rate of growth for a juvenile loggerhead of this size.
The story of how this loggerhead came to the Aquarium on August 22, 2000 was detailed in the August-November 2000 issue of Loggerheadlines.
This story is a remarkable example of the success of rehabilitation, for which little data is available. While satellite-telemetry (which has been used by the South Carolina Aquarium) provides a means to gauge the initial success of rehabilitation and release, documenting long-term survivorship requires recapturing turtles which is not common. Stinky is only the second of 51 sea turtles to be recaptured following successful rehabilitation and release by the Aquarium, both of which were recaptured in the regional in-water trawl survey.
http://charleston.thedigitel.com/news/regional-sea-turtle-survey-recaptures-first-sea-tu-23326-0824
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Sea turtles nest at record rate in Georgia
Posted: September 4, 2010 – 12:18am | Updated: September 4, 2010 – 6:05am
By Mary Landers
It’s been a good year for Georgia’s sea turtles.
As of Friday, loggerhead sea turtles had laid 1,737 nests along the coast, from Savannah to St. Mary’s. The previous record high for this threatened species was 1,646 in 2008.
And that number could go higher. The network of volunteers and biologists who patrol the state’s beaches for signs of turtles all summer found eight nests of unknown species, plus four from green turtles and four from the gigantic leatherbacks, the world’s largest turtle.
Still, Georgia sea turtle coordinator Mark Dodd isn’t celebrating just yet.
“We have seen an exciting trend in the nesting data over the last couple years, but we are not quite ready to say the species is in a period of recovery,” he said. “Scientists are very cautious by nature, and we need to have a high level of confidence that there is a real trend in the nesting data as opposed to one that might occur by chance.”
What will it take to convince this skeptical turtle researcher that Georgia’s loggerheads are out of the woods? Not too much more.
“One more average or above average nesting year, and we will have a statistically increasing trend in the data,” he said.
Cumberland Island, the state’s largest barrier island, led the nesting this summer with 480 nests.
“We keep expecting nesting to end, but they just keep coming,” Dodd said. “It’s like they just don’t want to stop. While most of the rest of the coast hasn’t had a nest in several weeks, Cumberland had three last week.”
Nesting season runs from May until September.
Tybee saw 10 nests, not a record for the island – that was 11 nests in 2007 – but close. Uninhabited Little Tybee had 16.
Also in Chatham County, Wassaw Island posted a record 160 nests by late last week, said Kris Williams, director of the Caretta Research Project, which has been tracking nests there since 1973.
“We had 141 in 2006, so we beat it by 19,” she said. “We had 159 loggerhead nests and then we had a green turtle.”
(Since then Wassaw recorded another loggerhead nest, bringing its total to 161.)
The green was the same mama turtle who laid her eggs on Wassaw in 2003.
“It took her a while, and then she came back,” Williams said.
Williams would like to think the record year is the result of all the conservation efforts volunteers and staff have put into Georgia beaches in the past three decades.
“It was a fantastic season,” she said.
About 60 percent of the nests have hatched so far. Hurricane Earl poses little threat to Georgia’s still incubating turtle nests, as the storm is not expected to produce enough tidal surge in Georgia to overwash nests, Dodd said.
http://savannahnow.com/news/2010-09-04/sea-turtles-nest-record-rate-georgia
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Turtle Watchers Cap ‘Good Year’ For Loggerheads
Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
BRUNSWICK, Ga. –(Ammoland.com)- A record-breaking year came to a close recently as members of the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative met in Brunswick to wrap up the nesting season.
There were 1,750 loggerhead nests recorded in 2010, topping the previous record of 1,646 from 2008. Last year’s nesting totals were much lower, with only 995 reported.
Members of the coop gave updates on various projects ranging from genetics data to predation issues. The overarching message: It was a good year for sea turtles.
For the last 22 years, Sea Turtle Cooperative members have worked to conserve Georgia’s turtles. Coordinated by the Wildlife Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the group of volunteers, researchers and biologists from various agencies monitors turtle nesting activities on Georgia beaches.
This season, Cumberland Island led all barrier islands with 486 confirmed nests.
“Both our nesting numbers and our hatchling success numbers were really high this year,” said Doug Hoffman, National Park Service biologist on Cumberland Island. “An average year for us is around 225 nests and we doubled that this season.”
In addition, Cumberland saw its predation rate drop from 67 percent in 2000 to less than 1 percent this year, a figure Hoffman is proud to report. “I came on board in 2000 when predation was at the highest levels it has ever been,” he said.
“… In the last 10 years we have taken measures that include live trapping of raccoons, shooting hogs and placing screens on every nest – all of which have reduced the predation rate to almost zero. The only thing we still have a problem with is ghost crabs, but you see that on every island. “
Cumberland also accounted for about half of the strandings during the nesting season, or 43 of 119 sea turtles found washed up along the coast. This may be in part due to the length of the island’s coastline, which stretches for 17 miles. Whenever a turtle washes ashore dead or comes to the beach and then dies, it is referred to as a stranding.
On Tybee Island, the nesting storyline was a little different. Tybee recorded some of the lowest numbers, with only 10 confirmed nests. However, that number was still high for a developed beach.
Tammy Smith, Sea Turtle Project coordinator for the island, was very excited that her group of volunteers not only beat local rival St Simons Island, which reported only five nests, but also made strides toward improving the habitat for turtles.
“Lighting pollution is one of our biggest issues, being a developed beach, but this year we were able to get the hotel on the south side of the island, in an area we call the strand, to turn off the lights in the top three balcony levels,” helping limit the number of disoriented turtles, Smith said.
Turtles often mistake lights on the beach for moonlight, which they use to navigate back to the water after nesting. A turtle can become disoriented and then exhausted looking for the ocean and end up on busy roads or in backyards. Lights are also a problem for hatchlings, which may head toward roads and homes rather than the water, making them more vulnerable to predators.
Tybee turtle volunteers also had their first encounter with a live adult turtle this year, one that happened to have been tagged on Wassaw Island. “That was pretty neat; most of us had never seen a turtle actually laying a nest,” Smith said.
Jekyll Island had a decent year with 140 nests. Emily Walker, night patrol team leader for the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, reported that the last nest finally hatched in early October. Overall, Jekyll’s hatchling success rate has been holding steady at 62 percent. Walker attributes that to moving fewer nests this year due to less erosion. “We only lost two nests, so that was pretty exciting,” she said.
Another development on Jekyll had to do with lights on the beach.
“We were able to get a new lighting ordinance passed this year that states that if you have suitable nesting habitat on the beach you have to use appropriate lighting for turtles,” Walker explained. “Already there are hotels changing their lights and there is a good chance it contributed to us having fewer disorientations due to lighting this season.”
Despite the record year for loggerheads, biologists urged caution. Federal criteria require that the population increase by 2 percent a year for 50 years for the species to be considered recovered. The 50-year nesting goal for loggerheads in Georgia is 2,800 nests a year.
Mark Dodd, a senior wildlife biologist and Sea Turtle Program Coordinator with Georgia DNR, said the loggerhead population in Georgia “has sustained a long-term decline, but over the last five years, we have seen average or above-average nesting years. “We are hopeful that we are seeing the beginnings of a recovery, but it is still too early to say.”
Dodd praised the Sea Turtle Cooperative. “We are very grateful to our cooperators for all their hard work,” he said. “Without them, we wouldn’t have a sea turtle conservation program in Georgia.”
Loggerheads, the most common sea turtle on Georgia’s coast, are state-listed as endangered. The nesting season runs from May through September. Daily monitoring of nesting began in 1989.
Georgians can help conserve sea turtles and other animals not legally hunted, fished for or trapped, as well as native plants and habitats, through buying wildlife license plates that feature a bald eagle or a ruby-throated hummingbird. They can also donate to the Give Wildlife a Chance state income tax checkoff, or directly to DNR’s Nongame Conservation Section. These programs are vital to the Nongame Conservation Section, which receives no state funds.
Visit http://www.georgiawildlife.com for more information, or call Nongame Conservation Section offices in Social Circle (770-761-3035), Forsyth (478-994-1438) or Brunswick (912-264-7218).
Distributed to you by – AmmoLand.com – The Shooting Sports News source.
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Film review: “Turtle: The Incredible Journey”
By Kirk Honeycutt
Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:59pm EDT
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – “Turtle: The Incredible Journey,” made by veteran wildlife documentarians under the direction of Nick Stringer, follows the life and underwater travels of a single creature of the sea, a female loggerhead turtle, which has a one-in-10,000 chance to survive its journey. This journey, as is the case of so many wildlife documentaries these days, offers the opportunity for the filmmakers to make a plea on behalf of endangered species and to explore ecological issues, in this case what’s happening in the earth’s oceans under threat from over-fishing and global warming.
It looks like this film has taken its own arduous journey on the film festival/market circuit, where the odds may be only slightly better than that of the loggerhead. The film took two years to make and the print screened for review bore a 2008 copyright date. The film is now getting a modest release June 24 in Los Angeles, New York and near three primary SeaWorld locations via SeaWorld Pictures and Hannover House.
Since a Russian distributor spent the money to convert the film to 3D, the U.S. release in some locations will be in 3D. This review is based on a conventional print.
A loggerhead turtle is born literally buried alive in sand. Digging itself to the surface of a beach in Florida, the tiny creature must scramble for the water a few meters away across a war zone where prey such as ghost crabs and pelicans close in to devour these newborn.
If the turtle makes it to the water, strong currents carry the baby for up to three days before she reaches the Gulf Stream. (The filmmakers have a heroine since this will better illustrate the circle of life for these turtles.)
At this point, survival rate is about 50 percent. Things get worse.
She drifts at no more than five-miles-per-hour in sargassum weed, a plant that floats in the ocean, on her journey north. This film imagines she drifts seriously off-course, out of the Gulf Stream and into the doldrums of the Sargasso Sea. Here she is caught for five years.
Eventually, the movie’s heroine relocates the Gulf Stream, swims the north Atlantic for years from the freezing north to the Azores, then heads back to the Caribbean, 9,000 miles guided only by instincts inherited from ancestors going back millions of years. Hazards include blue sharks and jellyfish but also man, whose fishing nets and long lines catch and kill countless loggerheads.
The crew headed by cinematographer Rory McGuiness captures the hatchlings emerging on that Florida beach along with rare footage of juvenile turtles in the Azores and a brilliant shot of two turtles in a mating embrace. Adult turtles were filmed in the Florida Keys and the Caribbean but many scenes were filmed with rescued turtles in a specially built marine studio. Shots of the tiny turtle hitching a ride in the sargassum weed were recreated there as well.
So the film features amazing cinematography both underwater and on the ocean surface. But it does suffer from a treacly narration and overly dramatic music that pitch the movie more to young school children than interested adults. At least the filmmakers forgo giving their heroine a name, which another recent wildlife doc did with its wildlife “characters.”
The loggerhead turtle’s journey is indeed incredible. But you would rather the narration, delivered intelligently by Miranda Richardson, didn’t feel a need to remind you of this fact so frequently.
(Editing by Zorianna Kit)
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