Turtle Bay

Sea turtles are one of the oldest surviving species on the earth, they evolved 150 million years ago from land to sea and they were seen in many numbers all over the worlds seas and oceans. Of the seven species, all of whom are endangered, three are found in the mediterranean sea, the Loggerhead, Green Turtle and the Leatherback. The Loggerhead is the only turtle to nest in the mediterranean and their biggest nesting site is on the island of Zakynthos.

The Loggerhead turtle or Caretta Caretta is so named due to the size of the head which is large because they eat large shellfish and need the jaw strength to crush the shells. On Zakynthos the turtle mates in the Kalamaki-Lagana bay, the males arrive first and the females will choose their mate. The nesting process takes about an hour. The turtle the lays between 80 and 120 eggs into the nest, refills the chamber and flicks sand over the area to camouflage the nesting site. The female then leaves the nest and will never see her offspring.

The female will repeat this process 2 or 3 times in the season however they only mate every 3 years. The adult turtle has very few predators, man is the main reason for the death and injuries sustained. As hatchlings they have many predators hence only 1 or 2 in every 1000 make it to adulthood and they do not reproduce until they are 25-30 years old. The Loggerhead turtle is deminishing in numbers every year, there are an estimated 2,500 in the mediterranean sea and over half of them hatched in Greece.