When sea turtle hatchlings arrive earthside, they have an instinctive “sea-finding” behavior that acts as an internal compass directing them toward the ocean — or whatever is the lowest and brightest horizon in their line of sight.
So when bright, artificial light is what they first see, hatchlings can quickly be misdirected and led astray.
That’s what local officials believe happened in Volusia County, Florida earlier this week when dozens of sea turtle hatchlings were seen climbing up a beach approach in the opposite direction of the ocean.
Volusia Sheriff’s Office/Facebook
Local police officers helped round up the batch of babies.
“Overnight, VSO deputies assisted in collecting about 75 confused baby sea turtles who were trying to crawl up a beach approach,” the Volusia Sheriff’s Office shared on Facebook. “The turtles were turned over to County of Volusia officials who later released them back in the ocean.”
These kinds of sea turtle interactions are not uncommon, especially during nesting season.
In July, a 400-pound nesting sea turtle found her way into a residential area and was trapped in a swimming pool in the Cayman Islands.
Soon after, about a dozen sea turtle hatchlings were rescued from a condo’s storm drain in Bonita Springs.
And before that, a man went viral on TikTok for rescuing a tiny turtle hatchling from a random sidewalk in the opposite direction of the beach.
Volusia Sheriff’s Office/Facebook
As Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission reports, sea turtles typically make between 40,000 and 84,000 nests along the state’s beaches, with females laying anywhere from 80 to 120 eggs in each nest.
While this may seem like a lot, only one in 1,000 sea turtles typically makes it to adulthood. Increasing their chances of survival — and making it to the ocean in the first place — is vital to protecting the state’s endangered sea turtle species.
Local beachfront properties can do their part by following turtle-friendly lighting guidelines. And beach-goers and tourists can help, too, by keeping beaches flat and easy to navigate and reducing their own sources of artificial light.
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Featured image: Volusia Sheriff’s Office/Facebook
