Sea Turtle Nesting Season Draws to a Close on Banderas Bay Frank Smith - Grupo Ecológico de la Costa Verde
January 3, 2024

Amazing Sea Turtle Mating Footage! (BlueWorldTV)

Except for eight late nests in the nursery, the 2023 nesting season has come to a mellow end, although we may still see a few late natural nests on the beach. Nests laid between December and mid-April have a difficult time incubating due to the cold sand, which produces all male turtles.

Our nursery techniques are designed to encourage female hatchlings, because over-population of males can create problems. When there are many adult males offshore, up to ten males will start fighting to mate with one female. Many times, the fighting males will drown the female since she is on the bottom and cannot get air. This is why we do not bring nests into our nursery during the cold months; we let them hatch naturally. This maintains a healthy balance between male and female adult turtles offshore.

As for the Leatherback, her nesting season begins around mid-November and ends in mid-April. So far this season we have discovered three Leatherback nests on another one of our beaches. As you know, the Leatherback is highly endangered. These nests are under the watchful eyes of our volunteers.

Also, last month we cleaned up all the egg shells, dead hatchlings, and sterile eggs that we found carelessly scattered around the nest site.

Since we have reached the end of the 2023 nesting season, we will not have any more hatchling releases until next season. Friday evening hatchling releases will begin again sometime around mid-August 2024.

Here is our end-of-season nest count:

• We recorded 1,120 nests, about the same as last season.
• We placed 681 nests in the box nursery.
• We relocated 402 nests to safer areas on the beach.
• We recorded 37 nests taken by poachers.

Overall, in 2023 we released approximately 77,700 hatchlings! Thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, this was another successful year for our turtle conservation project.

If you or someone you know is interested in helping us next summer, the 2024 nesting season, you can sign up by going to our Volunteer application page. As always, please help us by spreading the word about our volunteering opportunity.

An excellent way to help Grupo Ecológico de la Costa Verde is by making a tax-deductible donation through our 501(c)(3) charity partner. To donate you can contact Travler at Travler.org, which is a US charity organization that has supported Grupo Ecológico for several years. Click on this link to make a tax-deductible contribution.

Related: Witnessing the Dangerous, Crucial Volunteer Work of Protecting and Releasing Baby Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Orion)

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