News

Rare footage captures thousands of baby turtles making it to the sea

Rare footage captures thousands of baby turtles making it to the sea
Screengrab: Twitter

These tiny baby Olive Ridley turtles succeeding in their perilous journey to the ocean might be the best thing you’ll see all day.

Cast your mind back to 2016 when David Attenborough took us on an absolute journey in Planet Earth II’s ‘Cities’ series finale when horrified viewers watched throngs of baby turtles, disorientated by city lights, crawl in the wrong direction, away from the Barbadian beach on which they hatched, towards the road where they were run over by traffic and getting trapped down storm drains.

It’s honestly quite distressing even remembering it. And not to totally milk it, but generally, only one in 1,000 turtles will make it to adulthood.

So with that in mind, take even more delight in this video of thousands, maybe even millions, of newly hatched tiny Olive Ridley turtles making it to the sea.

Crawling down the beach in Odisha, on the eastern coast of India, the turtles swim out into the Bay of Bengal.

Odisha is one the largest mass nesting site for the Olive Ridley, which despite being the most common turtle species, have decreased by approximately 50 percent since the 1960’s.

Sorry to end on a downer, but this is what happens if we don’t look after our oceans.

The Conversation (0)
x