A Tropical Turtle Nested in California for the First Time. Will the Eggs Hatch?
On 16 September, an olive ridley sea turtle crawled out of the Pacific near Seal Beach in Orange County, dug a hole in the sand and laid her eggs, something no sea turtle has ever been recorded doing on the US West Coast. The Huntington Beach Fire Department filmed it, and the footage was later shared by NOAA Fisheries. Three days afterwards a turtle came ashore again near the Huntington Beach Pier, a few miles to the south, and laid a second nest. Both spots are now fenced off and signposted, and each is thought to hold between 50 and 100 eggs.
NOAA Fisheries describes it as the first-ever recorded natural nesting of any sea turtle species on this coast. The bigger questions come after that: why an olive ridley sea turtle turned up in Southern California at all, whether these eggs have...