Volunteers in Manzanillo, Colima, are gearing up for a busy season collecting turtles eggs on the beaches in the area. The yearly nesting season runs from July to December and during that period in 2021 the Tortugario Manzanillo (Manzanillo Turtle Sanctuary) collected 108,000 eggs from 1,660 nests. This year they expect similar collection numbers.

The center has about 30 volunteers, according its director, Sonia Quijano, who will begin night watches along the beach starting this weekend. In 2021 they expanded the extension of beach that they are watching and protecting, which has led to even greater number of eggs retrieved and turtles hatched at their facilities.

Scientists have shown that sea turtles are important in many ways for healthy oceans, performing roles as varied as maintaining delicate coral reefs to transporting nutrients from the oceans to beaches. Every year thousands of sea turtles come to the shores of Mexico to lay their eggs and then head back into the water to continue their global migration.

Of the world’s seven species of sea turtles, the most common species on the Manzanillo beaches are the Olive Ridley sea turtles as well as leatherbacks and green sea turtles.

Long threatened by poachers, many organizations along Mexico’s Pacific coast work to protect turtles and their eggs. Even with the assistance of their human partners, there is only a 1 in 1,000 chance that sea turtles released back into the ocean will survival the perils of their adolescence in the ocean (but if they make it they can live up to 150 years).

With reports from AF Medios