Tag: loggerhead turtle
Turtle nests in Cayman reach decade high
(CNS): The Department of Environment recorded more turtle nests in 2022 than any single year over the last decade. A total of 858 nest were counted, 169 more than the previous high in 2017, when there were 689 nests. The increase resulted from a steep rise in the number of green turtle nests, which topped […]
Nesting loggerhead lost to poachers on Brac
(CNS): Poachers on Cayman Brac caught one of the very few loggerhead turtles that nest on that island as she crawled up the beach to lay her eggs Wednesday night, the Department of Environment has said. DoE enforcement officers and the police followed up on the report early Thursday morning but with no success. Loggerhead […]
Loggerheads not ‘fooling’ around in 2022
(CNS): The Department of Environment’s turtle team was delighted to discover that the report on the first day of this month of the first nest of the 2022 turtle nesting season on Grand Cayman was not an April Fools’ joke. The very early nest was reported by a couple who discovered it on 1 April […]
Loggerhead turtles lay record number of nests
(CNS): 2021 has turned out to be a record-breaking year for the number of loggerhead turtle nests across all three Cayman Islands. When turtle nest monitoring began in 1998, no loggerhead nests were counted on any of the islands and scientists believed the numbers were too low to ever recover.
Hatchlings put on daytime show in Little Cayman
(CNS): Volunteers with the Department of Environment’s Turtle Team on Little Cayman were on hand last week to catch on camera the rare event of baby turtles hatching from their nests during daylight hours. Sea turtles usually emerge from their nests at night to prevent them from overheating and to evade hungry predators on land […]
End of legal turtling saved local loggerheads
(CNS): A new academic article published in the marine science magazine, Frontiers, authored by several staff members from the Department of Environment and their partners at the University of Exeter, has used 22 years of data on local turtles to demonstrate the recovery of the populations and how that can be sustained in future, given […]
More than 550 turtle nests break season records
(CNS): The year 2020 will go down in history for many reasons but it has also made the record books here for the length of the wild turtle nesting season and number of nests found on the islands’ beaches. Across Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac, Department of Environment staff and volunteers counted 557 nests and […]
First green turtle nest spotted early
(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 turtle nests were found this early in the year. […]
Turtle found tangled in line and net
(CNS): A large juvenile loggerhead turtle has been put down after it was found in the Barkers area entangled in fishing line and a cargo net yesterday, the Department of Environment has reported on its social media pages. The near two-foot-long rare turtle sustained two fin injuries so severe it had to be euthanised. The […]
Turtle hotline saves disoriented loggerhead babies
(CNS): An intern at the Department of Environment was able to rescue a number of baby loggerhead turtles in the early hours of Tuesday morning thanks to a report from the public that the tiny turtles were heading the wrong way. At this time of year baby turtles are emerging from their nests all along […]
Turtles still challenged but nest numbers steady
(CNS): Over 300 turtle nests were identified by Department of Environment staff during this year’s turtle nesting season on Grand Cayman, with a combined total of more than 400 on all three islands, slightly down on the 2015 figures but given seasonal fluctuations, experts believe there is a steady upward trend. DoE Research Officer Janice […]
