Loggerhead turtles to be reintroduced to Fuerteventura.

Today, 200 eggs will be transferred by helicopter to Cofete beach in an attempt to reintroduce Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta), to Fuerteventura.

The eggs will be buried in the sand, then continuously monitored and protected by a team of volunteers and biologists.

The project, which was developed by the Government of Cape Verde, (the natural birthplace of the turtles), the Government of the Canaries, the Cabildo de Fuerteventura and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been developed over several years.

In the other phase of the project eggs will be incubated by both the laboratories of the Canarian Institute for Marine Sciences and the biological research station Doñana, in Huelva, on the Spanish mainland.

We hope to keep you informed on their progress.

Update-The eggs are buried sucessfully

The turtle eggs were buried yesterday in Cofete in a process overseen by the president of the Government of Canaries, Adán Martín, the president of the Cabildo de Fuerteventura, Mario Cabrera, and the regional and insular counselors of Environment, Domingo Berriel y Lázaro Cabrera, the regional vice counsellor of the Environment, Milagros Luis Brito, and a team of specialists.

Ten years ago an unsucessful attempt was made to introduce the turtles on Sotovento beach, and since then professor Luis Felipe López Sworn, has worked with the other organisations to achieve a sucessful reintroduction of the turtles, which historical documents prove lived on Fuerteventura until the 18th century.

In the intervening 10 years studies have looked at the quality of the sands of our beaches, the quality of the water, the sea and air temperatures and of the forms of reproduction of loggerhead sea turtles.

We now have to wait for a month until the eggs begin to hatch. From now until the baby turtles make their way to the sea they will be monitored and protected from preditors. This process will be repeated each year.

There is hope for the sucess of the project as Loggerhead turtles have been sucessfully reintroduced on the coast of California.

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