The Seville Aquarium Successfully Concludes the Breeding Program for Four Sea Turtles
The Seville Aquarium has successfully completed the breeding and strengthening “head starting” program for four sea turtle specimens, which were born at the Oceanogràfic, from the nest discovered in July last year on El Serradal beach in Castellón, where their mother laid 113 eggs and where they will return to enter the sea.
Entrusted by the Department of Agriculture and Ecological Transition, over the past seven months, the technical team at the Seville aquarium has cared for the animals and has been able to study their development, behavior, skills, and physiological conditions to provide more knowledge about this species. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), this species is threatened, now also by marine debris.
The Seville Aquarium is part of the group of Spanish centers that are responsible for the conservation of sea turtles, which appear stranded, damaged on the coast or, as in this case, ensuring the survival of hatchlings from different nests that are threatened by various human activities.
The turtles, named Earth, Air, Water, and Fire, have arrived at the Oceanogràfic Foundation in perfect health and have joined the rest of their “sisters”, who have also followed the same program at the Oceanogràfic Foundation facilities.
Growth and sea introduction program
The small turtles hosted at the Seville Aquarium follow the aforementioned “head-starting” protocol, whose purpose is to ensure that the hatchlings reach sufficient size, weight, and swimming, diving, and feeding skills to increase their chances of survival and evade a large part of their natural predators.
The experiences carried out so far allow for great optimism, because the survival rates of these animals when entering the sea are around 90%, which means a success for the conservation of the species, given that it is estimated that, under natural conditions, only one turtle out of a thousand that are born survives its entry into the sea.
A surviving animal
The turtle is a natural survivor and from the beginning of its life demonstrates its great strength. The yolk nutrition serves in the natural environment to emerge from the sand where the nest is deposited, to travel the distance from the beach to the sea shore.
Upon reaching the water, they unleash a swimming frenzy with which, despite their meager 17 grams of weight and 6 centimeters in size, they are able to overcome the breakers of the first meters of the shore until reaching the open sea, where the hatchling takes advantage to stabilize by folding its tiny flippers and floating.