Leatherback Turtles Breeding in Trinidad

We went on a tour to the east coast of Trinidad to see the Leatherback Turtles come ashore and lay their eggs. Once these several hundred pound turtles start laying, they ignore everything, and we took flash pictures and petted their heads, all under the supervision of the authorities, who read their electronic chip tags when they come up, or insert one if they aren't tagged. Our girl was one of the smaller youngsters, possibly a first time breeder, who got tagged. Really cool. Don't have the figures for the night we were there, but the night before there were 105 turtles that came ashore on this one 6 mile beach to lay eggs. We huddled in the dark until the game warden walked us up to one that had started laying her eggs. Light or movement prior to that will likely scare her back into the ocean. We had watched her come up onto the beach in very little moon light from about 100 yards away. They live to about 100, and start laying eggs at about 23. Once they start laying eggs, they come back up every 10 days or so to lay again, and do this 5 to 7 times in the season (March to August). They lay 75-125 eggs each time. Then they breed again every 4-5 years, covering the entire Atlantic in the meantime, from Greenland, England, Africa etc, eating jelly fish and Portuguese man of war all along the way. They've been known to dive to 4,000 feet, but that is usually defensive to escape the attention of a shark. Note the non stock notch in her port aft fin, probably caused by a shark according to the game warden. Awesome animals. The males never return to land, and are much larger, going to 3-4 thousand pounds. Once our girl finished laying, all pictures and contact was immediately stopped, and we stepped back and watched her cover her eggs and then head back out into the surf.



It's great to see these people so dedicated to the protection of these turtles. They divide the beach into areas of responsibility, and the areas are patrolled by game wardens