In a project being carried out by the regional ministry for the environment and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC – Higher Council for Scientific Research) 250 Loggerhead turtle eggs collected from the Cape Verde archipelago off the west coast of Africa were buried in three nests on beached in the Cabo de Gata natural park. Of the 250 eggs 247 hatched, a result which has been hailed as a resounding success by the scientists as normally less than half of this type of eggs hatch on the Cape Verde beaches from which they were collected.
After they hatched the young turtles were immediately captured to be taken to marine centres in Malaga and Cadiz where they will be kept in semi-freedom until they are a year old at which time they will be brought back to the beaches in Almeria to be released. The aim of the experiment is to see if the turtles will then return to these beaches to lay their own eggs when mature thus perpetuating the repopulation of the species in the sea off the coast of Almeria.
Loggerhead turtles (Carreta carreta), known in Spanish as tortuga boba (daft turtles), can reach weights of more than 100 kilos in as little as five years and it has been reported they can grow up to 364 kilos in weight and 1.1 metres in length. It is estimated they live 30 to 62 years in the wild.
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