Champion Leatherback Nesters

A female Leatherback arrives at Sandy Point at dawn to begin nesting

A female Leatherback arrives at Sandy Point at dawn to begin nesting

Each year about 80- 100 individual Leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) nest in Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge in St. Croix, USVI. On average, leatherback turtles lay about five nests in a single season, but there are turtles that come to Sandy Point for one nest and aren’t seen again for several years. (Although one leatherback sea turtle was just seen and rescued off of Barnstable Ma., this past Sunday.)  On the other end of the spectrum, there are turtles that have laid as many as 12 nests in a single season.  As the 2014 leatherback nesting season is beginning to slow down, there are fifteen turtles that have nested over seven times and there is one turtle that is due for her tenth nest of the year any day now.

 

Each leatherback nest has about 70-90 viable eggs, so the turtles who are laying over six nests have laid around 500 eggs each on

Leatherback hatchlings emerging from their nest

Leatherback hatchlings emerging from their nest

Sandy Point this year. However, the average hatch rate on Sandy Point is about 55%. The hatch rate is variable, but similar to estimates for global averages. Sandy Point’s Champion Nesters have about 250 babies each entering the Caribbean water this year. However, only 1 out of 1000 is estimated to survive to adulthood. This year Geographic Consulting’s sea turtle biologists have monitored a turtle having record reproductive nest success; of her seven nests three have already hatched and they have all had over 80% of the eggs hatch. In her second nest of the season, eighty-five hatchlings emerged, which is a project record for the most hatchlings to emerge from a single nest. Nesting data dates back to 1984, continuously. During the last month of the project, we are anticipating the hatching of her last four nests to see if they

A leatherback "dawn turtle" returns to the sea after successfully nesting

A leatherback “dawn turtle” returns to the sea after successfully nesting

continue this astounding hatch success.

Comments, Questions? Contact Us.

Close