#turtle nests

Loggerhead hatchlings (CNS): The first turtle nest of the season was found by the Department of Environment’s volunteer team on Cayman Brac last month, and just a day later, the first nest on Grand Cayman was discovered. As the season gets underway, six loggerhead turtle nests have been found on five different beaches so far. Female loggerheads usually start to lay eggs a few weeks before green…

DoE makes emergency baby turtle intervention

Paul Chin, the DoE’s ‘turtle whisperer’, rescues sleeping baby turtles

(CNS): The Department of Environment’s Turtle Team went into rescue mode Monday, as they worked hard to move turtle eggs in nests that were in the firing line from Tropical Storm (later Hurricane) Delta. Organised by the team leader, Lorri Lamb, the DoE staff and volunteers excavated 18 nests under threat of being washed away…

Turtles still at risk despite record year

Baby green turtle emerges from a nest and heads to the sea

(CNS): This year’s turtle nesting season may be a record-breaking year for the number of nests but experts at the Department of Environment are reminding residents that there are still a number of preventable threats for turtles, particularly artificial lighting, which lures the babies as they hatch away from the relative safety of the…

Baby turtle hatches in daytime on 7MB

Baby green turtle emerges from the nest in broad daylight

Photo courtesy of the Cayman Turtle Centre

Photo courtesy of the Cayman Turtle Centre

Photo courtesy of the Cayman Turtle Centre

(CNS): Beachgoers were treated to a rare sight this weekend when one baby green turtle emerged from Seven Mile Beach in broad daylight at a Cayman Turtle Centre site at Villas of the Galleon. The CTC recently…

NCC votes for increased turtle protection

A nesting turtle was disoriented and fell into a swimming pool (Photo by Janice Blumenthal)

(CNS): A green turtle narrowly escaped poachers in West Bay recently after a member of the public called 911 to report an attempt to steal her away as she came onto the beach to nest. Conservation officers responded quickly and got her back in the sea, and then watched the beach through the night.…

First green turtle nest spotted early

A loggerhead turtle is given a helping had to find its way back to the sea

Tracks mark the first green turtle nest of the season

(CNS): Department of Environment researchers have documented the first wild green turtle nest of the 2020 nesting season. The nest was spotted on Grand Cayman on 26 May, which is unusually early, as over the past 21 years of sea turtle monitoring only two other green…

Longest turtle nesting season closes with high count

A straggler from the last nest of hawksbill turtles which hatched on Little Cayman in February (Photo courtesy Department of Environment)

(CNS): After the longest ever recorded turtle nesting season in the Cayman Islands, researchers have confirmed that 675 nests were counted between the discovery of the first nest in April on Grand Cayman to the last found in December in Little Cayman, where…

Baby turtles at risk from ‘rescuers’

Turtle hatchlings heading to the sea

(CNS): Misguided rescuers put a batch of baby turtles at risk when they disturbed a nest and encouraged the hatchlings to head towards the sea in broad daylight. The Department of Environment said a video that circulated on social media earlier this month showing people in the Cayman Islands digging up the nest in what they appeared to believe was a rescue…