Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, newly hatched sea turtles emerged on a Gabonese beach to embark on the treacherous 10-meter (33-foot) scramble across the sand to the ocean.
“The survival rate for turtles is one in 1,000,” Francois Boussamba, a Gabonese turtle expert and head of the NGO Aventures Sans Frontieres (Adventures Without Borders), told AFP, scouring for nests.
Conservationists from NGOs and the national parks agency patrol Gabon’s beaches daily during the nesting season to protect the turtles’ nests.
Those under threat are moved to a hatchery, a fenced enclosure near the sea, where the eggs are kept safe until they are ready to hatch.
On Pongara National Park’s white sandy beaches, about 30 minutes by boat from the capital Libreville, conditions are optimal for nesting: wild coastline, a favorable equatorial climate and an open ocean beach with gentle slopes, ideal for the females.
But dangers lurk. Nests are threatened by coastal erosion due to encroaching sea levels, or myriad predators such as crabs and birds that prevent the eggs from reaching their 60-day incubation period, Boussamba said.
“The chances of survival are tiny,” he said.
– Muscle up –
In Libreville, every morning around 7:00 am, volunteers from the Project Turtles Tahiti Gabon association crisscross the beach and check the nests in the hatchery.
After one has hatched, the baby turtles have to be moved so they can reach the sea — but they are never put straight into the water.
