200 Sea Turtle Eggs Moved From North Orange County Beaches To Aquarium Of The Pacific

SEAL BEACH, CA — Sea turtle eggs laid by two different endangered olive ridley sea turtles between Huntington Beach and Seal Beach were moved to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach Friday. Overwhelming concerns regarding the weekend's high surf and the incoming Kelvin wave-driven high tides were the reasons behind that move, according to an Aquarium of the Pacific spokesperson.

Early Friday, wildlife biologists carefully collected eggs from nests near the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge and in Huntington Beach and transferred them to a temperature-controlled environment at the aquarium, according to an interagency team overseeing the nests.

Two teams set out at 6 a.m. to excavate the nests of the rubbery eggs laid near the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge and in Huntington Beach. About 104 eggs were removed from Seal Beach and 100 more from Huntington Beach, according to Aquarium of the Pacific President and CEO Jeffrey Flocken.

"It has been quite an exciting morning," Flocken said. "It's not every day you get a call inviting you to be part of an emergency rescue of 204 different individuals of an endangered species. But that's what happened today."

The eggs were transported to the aquarium, where they will be incubated for the next 45 to 60 days in hopes that they will be viable and hatch, Flocken said.

Officials had been monitoring Hurricane Polo and the potential for large swells.

"Just a couple days ago, we started hearing that there was going to be a potential for giant swells hitting both those two beaches, coming from the hurricane that's forming right now out in the Pacific Ocean," Flocken said.

Flocken said the decision to move the eggs was made by federal and state wildlife officials.

"So, NOAA, California Fish and Wildlife, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service got together and determined that the best chances of survival ... would be to excavate those eggs before these swells happened, and potentially flooded (the area), and which would have killed the eggs in these different nests, rendering them not viable to be hatched," Flocken said.

Officials said they had been monitoring Hurricane Polo and potential beach hazards in Orange and San Diego counties. Hazardous surf conditions expected to coincide with high tides over the weekend prompted the decision to remove the eggs from the beaches.

If viable, the eggs could hatch in 45 to 60 days, around the first week of November, officials said.

According to NOAA, olive ridley turtles are the smallest of the sea turtles, with adults weighing up to 100 pounds and growing between two and three feet in length.

"They are estimated to live about 30-50 years," an agency post said. "These sea turtles are found worldwide, primarily in the tropical waters of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. Major Pacific nesting populations span Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. While occasionally seen in Southern California following warm currents, this species has never been documented to nest in the United States."

The public is advised to give nesting sites plenty of space, and not disturb the fencing or signage.

On Thursday, an area wildlife expert revealed how she first saw a potential climate change-fueled trend in Southland six years ago, during the COVID shutdown, when a group of boys discovered a handful of sea turtle eggs at Huntington Beach, Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center former CEO Debbie McGuire told Patch. She remarked that where those eggs were found was one of two places where sea turtles recently nested.

In 2020, those eggs failed to hatch after being removed from the shoreline; however, back then, this was not done with precise care or precision.

DNA tests later revealed that the sea turtle eggs in question were the same olive ridley sea turtle, McGuire said.

Read: Sea Turtle Eggs Laid Near Seal Beach Safety In Question: Is OC Their Long-Term Nesting Ground?

Dr. Cali Turner Tomaszewicz, a research biologist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center’s Marine Mammal and Turtle Division, conducted a photo ID analysis to tell the two turtles apart. She compared body shape, the number and location of barnacles, and each turtle’s scute pattern – the unique arrangement of the large scales on a turtle’s shell, much like a human fingerprint. Anyone who finds a stranded turtle can call the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Stranding Hotline at 562-506-4315.

Sightings of sea turtles can be reported using the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Facebook account at facebook.com/NOAAFisheriesWestCoast.