Turtle nesting at Soneva Fushi

Tuesday 25th January marked Soneva Fushi’s first turtle nest of the season. At around 9:30pm a green turtle made her way up the shore to the vegetation line on the appropriately named Turtle Beach. It was here, just east of the jetty at Cinema Paradiso, where she began to dig her nest. The whole process took over two hours, by midnight she had successfully laid her eggs, likely between 110-115 of them, and made her way back the sea.

This is fantastic news for green turtles, as some females don’t reach sexual maturity until 50 years of age, and breed every 1 to 9 years.

Female green turtles come up onto the beach to lay their eggs, usually on several different nights with 14 day breaks in between, so we are always on watch for potentially up to five nestings by the same turtle.

It will take around 60 days for the eggs to hatch, and we will monitor the nest careful from day 55 for signs of hatching. The sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the nest, with nests at or below 26°C producing all male hatchlings, and nests at or above 29°C producing all female hatchlings. Nests with intermediate temperatures produce mixed sex hatchlings, depending on the position, and therefore, temperature of individual eggs.

 

Green turtles mate very close to their nesting beaches, suggesting our house reef and nearby reefs are likely breeding grounds for this endangered species.

Since this first nest in January, we have recorded twelve green turtle nests on Soneva Fushi.