Sea Turtles By David Anderson

General Information  Sea turtles have been considered one of the last dinosaurs left on earth. They have been around since the era of dinosaurs 110 million years ago  Sea turtles tend to be yellow, green and black depending on the species.  There diet consist of mostly sea grass but recently scientist have discovered they will also eat jellyfish and crabs that they find.  There range can be up to 1400 miles because they migrate from their feeding grounds to their breeding grounds.

Reproduction and hatchlings  Female sea turtles during their breeding season will go up on to a beach, dig a hole and lay up to 200 eggs in a nest and then cover the hole back up.  Females can lay eggs multiple times in a breeding season but they only breed every other year.  Females lay their eggs at the beach where they were born so they have the navigation back to the beach ingrained in their head.  Hatchlings after 6-8 weeks dig themselves out of the nest and start their journey towards the ocean.  Hatchlings only have about a 1% chance of survival as many are eaten by various predators.

The Lost Years  After young sea turtles enter the ocean they are on a conquest to survive to adulthood.  There is a period from where the turtles hatch and enter the water till they are young adults that scientist have been curious about what goes on. They turtles virtually disappear until they are young adults.  Recent studies have shown that the years called “lost years” are spend floating along with seaweed on the surface because it gives them good coverage from predators.

Despair  Sea turtles have recently been experiencing a decline in population due to the BP oil spill in 2010  The turtles have been suffocating due to the oil laying on the surface of the water  Beaches are heavily polluted and damaged due to the oil  Humans have been hurting the population as well by poaching the turtle nest  Humans have been taking the eggs out of known nest and selling them and using them for food