First nest of Caretta caretta in Naples: baby turtles escorted by fishermen
In the long summer of records in Campania, the Caretta caretta also nested on the coast of Naples, a few hundred meters from one of the most populated areas of the metropolis. Also for this reason the fishermen of the association “Il mare bathna San Giovanni” did not believe their eyes when they came across small bewildered turtles, on the shoreline of the free beach in Vico Prima Marina in San Giovanni a Teduccio, in the eastern area of Naples: an absolute novelty in these parts.
They thus helped to reach the sea, protecting them from seagulls, and thus alerted the San Giovanni Operational Unit of the Municipal Police, which updated the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Naples – National Institute of Biology, Ecology and Marine Biotechnology, reference body in Campania for the monitoring of sea turtles.
The researchers found the absence of traces, erased by the trampling of people and by the wind that made it impossible to find the egg chamber. Fortunately, thanks to the precious help of the people present, they managed to identify a small still alive, promptly released offshore and one dead among the rocks, where it probably ended up due to the disorientation caused by the public lighting. The young, together with the videos recovered by the fishermen who had witnessed the first emergencies, no doubts: this is the first sea turtle recorded on the coast of the municipality of Naples in a long breeding season which in Campania recorded 56 spawnings, a record of number.
The data – which embraces the many depositions in Cilento and Casertano, but also nests in Maiori, Salerno and Ischia, also in this case an absolute novelty – is disseminated by the team of the “Caretta in vista” project, coordinator of the Zoological Station Anton Dohrn, and certifies a geographical increase in the nesting area of the Caretta caretta, probably also linked to the warming of the surface waters of the sea. At the same time, however, it attests to a general improvement in the conservation status of sea turtles in the Mediterranean.
“The discovery in San Giovanni – reads a note released by Anton Dohrn – once again highlights the importance of the collaboration of citizens to monitor this important phenomenon and to intervene promptly to protect and monitor the sea turtle nests, often deposited in stretches of heavily anthropized and therefore exposed to considerable risks “.