The Importance Of Sea Turtles

When I was around ten years old, my mom took me to my first week long camp. I packed all my cute clothes, my three favorite stuffed animals, candy, and a book for the car ride. I circled the house two times to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. Clothes check, toothbrush even though I wouldn’t use it check, book check. Everything seemed to be accounted for so I got in the car. Despite the hour long car ride that was ahead of me, which was an eternity for a ten year old, I was thrilled. My best friend, Amy, was coming and there would be horseback riding. We had been friends since the baby program, ECFE, at church. She was homeschooled and I went to public school, however we had many play dates so we saw each other a lot. Our favorite thing

They dig with their flippers in the sand almost as if they were swimming. Then they lay their eggs and cover the nest, entombing the eggs in sand. Next, the mother leaves the nest and returns to the ocean. Temperature has a major impact on the mortality of these unhatched sea turtles. According to a study by David Pike, eggs laid in tropical regions, about 5 ℃ warmer than temperate regions, had a 28.7% lower chance of hatching. Such a small difference in temperature can mean the difference between life and death. Temperature also controls the gender of the sea turtles. Warmer sand towards the top of the burrow produces females, while the cooler sand at the bottom produces males. However with global warming or a poor nesting location, the entire burrow can become warm thus producing only females. Which leads to unhealthy competition and an imbalance in

Essentially, their heads are like compasses and they memorize the pull of the magnetic field at their home beach. Simon Benhamou experimented with impairing adult female green turtle’s geomagnetic compass by attaching a strong magnet to their heads until they were released in a random location in the ocean. Despite this impairment, “the turtles of both groups [with and without magnets] were nevertheless able to [return] home”(Benhamou). In another experiment, Benhamou placed hatchlings in a tank surrounded my coils that allowed him to alter the magnetic field within the tank. The hatchlings began swimming east (the direction of the Atlantic Ocean) but when Benhamou reversed the magnetic field to the west the hatchlings changed directions. Other popular theories for sea turtle navigation include sun position and sense of