November Billion Baby Turtles Update
We’re thrilled to have passed the 10 million hatchling milestone this past month. Check out our blog post to learn how we got there. This month, we provided 4 grants to projects in 3 countries, totaling $18,000 in grants and helping to save more than 3.5 million hatchlings this month. That brings our total for 2023 to more than 4.2 million hatchlings saved for the year.
University of Michoacan, Colola Beach (Mexico)
Since 2013 SEE Turtles has supported this project located on the coast of Michoacán, Mexico. Colola is the most important beach for nesting black turtles, which are a different morphotype of green turtles in this area (very dark skin and different shape and color of carapace). The population of black turtles has been monitored systematically since 1981, from that date, the population declined dangerously 1980-1999 (between 100 and 500 nesting females). However, since 2000 the number of female black turtles has been increasing significantly and in this past season (2022) was a record with the highest nesting season ever recorded with more than 80,000 nests and an estimated 5 million hatchlings. With US$ 10,000 Billion Baby Turtles helped to protect more than 3 million baby black turtles this season.
Black turtle nesting at Colola. Photo by Juan Ma Contortrix
Everlasting Nature of Asia (Indonesia)
ELNA helps to protect hawksbill turtle eggs from egg collectors to aim to recover the population. They conduct this project with Indonesia Sea Turtle Research Foundation (Yayasan Penyu Laut Indonesia/ YPLI) to hire local people as egg guardians who walk around the beach every morning and collect the nesting data. With a US $4,000 grant, we estimate that 16,000 hawksbill hatchings will be saved.
Patroller Joey Avellanas conducting a nest survey. Photo: Sea Turtles Forever
Guerrero Biodiversidad (GROBIOS) (Mexico)
GROBIOS has been working to protect primarily leatherback turtles around Acapulco, Mexico since 2018. SEE Turtles provided a $2,000 grant from our emergency fund to help the camp rebuild from the category 5 Hurricane Otis that hit in October, 2023.