On Monday, February 4th, I attended a seminar on global climate change and sea turtles. Dr. Joseph Pfaller spoke at the seminar about the Caretta Research project which studies sea turtles, their migration/mating/laying patterns, their nests, etc. At this event, I learned about several different types of turtles that lay eggs along the east coast, primarily in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. I learned that female turtles come onto dry land, dig a hole, lay their eggs, cover them up, and then return to the ocean. During their laying season, females will usually lay 4-8 batches of eggs 13 days apart; so, in all, they lay anywhere from 80-180 eggs. The Caretta Research project typically collects data from these turtles while they’re laying their eggs by tagging them with various forms of identification. They also protect the turtle nests by tagging them, covering them, and sometimes relocating them. After the eggs hatch, the research team uses the discarded egg sacks to determine more information about the babies and their mother.

This seminar was informational with regards to our class in the sense that it showed me how our pollution can harm and even kill these sea turtles. Global warming is forcing these turtles to move farther north (to colder weather) where places have not been prepared and made safe for them. This global warming is also causing future generations of turtles to become primarily female (which can lead to extinction) because turtle gender is determined by temperature (hotter temperatures mean more females). Rising sea levels and ravenous storms due to global warming have been washing away turtle nests as well. Rising temperatures have also changed and slowed the currents that guide these turtles to food, mating partners, and laying grounds. Also, some of these sea turtles eat primarily jellyfish and thus have downward pointing spirals in their throats to lock prey inside; it just so happens that our plastic bags and many other man-made debris look a lot like a meal to many sea turtles.