Sea Turtles Make Comeback in Georgia – New Nesting Record Broken

Sea turtles are making a comeback in Georgia as a new record was broken for nests along the state coastline this year.

The number of nests recorded along the coastline for loggerhead sea turtles was 3,960 nests, according to a Georgia Department of Natural Resources press release. The previous record was set in 2019 at 3,950 nests documented.

The Jekyll Island Authority’s Georgia Sea Turtle Center also recorded 236 nests along the Jekyll Island coastline, as more than 6,000 baby loggerhead sea turtles were hatched from those nests, CNN reported.

Georgia’s lowest documented year of loggerhead sea turtles was in 2004 when only 358 nests were accounted for along the coastline, the press release noted.

Wildlife biologist Mark Dodd welcomed the news but noted that it will still take a few years before the loggerhead population in Georgia has fully recovered.

“Based on current trends, we predict it will take at least another 20 years before we reach our recovery goals,” Dodd said.

Dodd’s reasoning as to why the loggerhead population may plateau over the next two decades is because females do not start reproducing until 30 to 35 years of age.

However, the large increase of nests over the past 18 years is significant considering that sea turtles are currently listed under the Endangered Species Act.

If the current population trend remains, Georgia’s loggerhead sea turtles may return to “levels not seen since the late 1950s,” according to the press release.

The news of sea turtles making a return in Georgia comes despite the common climate catastrophist talking point that climate change is causing extinction for sea turtles.

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