An island mystery
Wildlife experts hope a secluded beach on Santa Cruz Island turns into a maternity ward for a mystery mother over the next couple of weeks.
Since March, a wayward and persistent sea turtle has left telltale signs of nesting. Tracks suggest it could be an olive ridley hundreds of miles north of its main breeding grounds in Mexico and Costa Rica.
Sea turtles are rare off Southern California, but when the occasional stray is sighted, it’s more likely a green turtle. “This was smaller,” says Lotus Vermeer, Santa Cruz Island project director for the Nature Conservancy. “There were tracks from the water to the dry portion of the beach.”
The turtle’s first nest site was inundated by tides, but in May tracks indicated it tried another beach above the tidal line. Vermeer is headed out to the island this week to look for signs of new arrivals.
Sea turtle eggs face long odds: Fewer than one in 1,000 hatchlings survives.
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