Turtles as big as Volkswagons … Yep, we’ve got a lot of them
When someone brings up the largest animals in the Gulf, it’s standard to think along the lines of whales and sharks, or maybe a Goliath grouper. But one of the largest species in our waters can be found both on land and in the water. It is a green sea turtle, which can grow to sizes of three to four feet long and can weigh 300 to 500 pounds. They are the largest hardshell turtle and second-largest sea turtle on the planet … and we currently have about 40 nests of them on the island.
That’s actually an unusually high number of them for us, as greens are much rarer than loggerheads, our normal nesting turtle – especially when you consider that green sea turtles always return to nest on the beach where they were born. Does that mean that there are nests that are laid by greens and never documented? Of course that’s a possibility, but their tracks and nests are very prominent and easy to identify. Perhaps it means that some of these turtles have just reached sexual maturity, which happens when they are 25 to 35 years old (Greens can live to be 60 to 70 years old). According to local turtle patrol member Stephanie Sondock, zone 4 has 21 green turtle nests out of the 38 documented, which could mean they were all from the same nest.
“These nests are large … large enough to fit a Volkswagon in,” she said. “Their tracks are very wide as well. They’re amazing.”
