Why are loggerhead turtles colonizing the Mediterranean?
STORY: Is global warming helping loggerhead turtles colonize the Mediterranean sea?
A growing number of these marine reptiles are nesting and laying eggs on western Mediterranean beaches.
Some scientists suggest climate change could be causing their habitat to expand.
“We believe that this trend happening along the Spanish, French and Italian Mediterranean coasts could be a new colonization process."
Loggerhead turtles are considered a vulnerable species.
And while climate change is usually detrimental to wildlife,
some scientists say the warming waters have apparently become more suitable for the turtles.
Marine biologists from France, Italy, Spain and Tunisia are discovering far more nests on the beaches of their respective countries.
Between 1990-2012, they were less than three a year.
In 2020, biologists identified 84 nests.
That's according to a paper released by Global Ecology and Conservation in summer 2022.
Ana Liria is the head of ADS Biodiversidad, a charity that rescues injured turtles in Spain's Canary Islands.
"One of the main causes to explain this trend could be global warming, climate change. Areas where turtles never used to reach because they were not adequate for laying eggs are getting warmer and perhaps now that these areas are warmer, they are now adequate.”
But Liria cautions that the turtles' behavioral change must be observed over much longer periods.
"They are long-living animals, they live between 80 and 100 years, we need many years to perform any kind of study on them. What we are seeing is a tiny fragment, we need more time to get to know them."
The world's largest hard-shelled turtles inhabit the warmer parts of world oceans.
They tend to return to their birthplace to lay eggs every few years.
A mature specimen can measure 35 inches and weigh 330 pounds.
Their size and hard shell generally protect them from predators,
but fishnets, ship rotors and pollution have become significant threats.
“This is the impact of sea waste. The current, which carries much sea waste also drags the turtles. In this case the animal won't be able to return to the sea because it is missing two flippers from the same side hence it won't be balanced enough to swim.”
The Mediterranean sea has become 1.3 Celsius warmer between 1982 and 2019.
That's according to a 2020 study by Valencia-based environmental foundation CEAM.
Along with the warming sea water, successful turtle protection programs launched globally in the past decades have also boosted the turtle population,
helping to lift their status above "endangered" level in many areas.
