South Africa’s southern coastline experiences an annual stranding season for post-hatchling loggerhead turtles from February to July.
After hatching in northern KwaZulu-Natal, thousands of tiny loggerheads enter the warm Agulhas Current. As it slows and turns off the southern coastline, some hatchlings are spat out into cooler waters near the Benguela Current, where they go into cold shock. Many also sustain injuries and ingest plastic. Unable to cope, they are swept ashore by onshore winds and winter storms.
Each year, a Turtle Rescue Network, comprising many organisations and over 1000 members of the public, is activated to search for stranded hatchlings. Typically, 50-250 are rescued annually. But this year, 250 were rescued during extreme storms in the first three days! By July, over 600 stranded hatchlings were rescued.
The Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation, Bayworld PE and SAAMBR worked together to spread the load, and now, most of these turtles – and thousands of others rescued over the years – have been successfully released.
While we cannot be certain, we suspect that the unusually high number of hatchling strandings this season was due to extreme weather conditions, which scientists have predicted to be intensified by climate change.
Credits: Article was aritten by the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation.
Picture: Lower Breede River Conservancy