The Red Sea

In 2022, 613 Green turtle nesting attempts were recorded on nine TRS islands. By far the largest number were on Breem (487). Next highest islands for nesting activity were Waqadi and Ataweel (64 and 35, respectively). The remaining six islands with Green turtle nesting activity had a total of 27 nesting attempts.

Compared to Green turtles, Hawksbills nested on more TRS islands (nine compared to two) but had fewer total nesting attempts (251, compared to 613). More than a third of those were at Waqadi (89), followed by Breem (46). The remaining 19 islands each had fewer than 20 nesting attempts.

The number of nests and nesting attempts correspond with estimated populations of nesting females at Amaala of 19 Hawksbills and 40 Green turtles for the 2022 season; at TRS, we estimate 69 nesting female Hawksbills and 173 nesting female Green turtles.

It’s important to recognize that turtle nesting can naturally vary widely from year to year. Individual females do not nest every year, sometimes only returning every three to five years. Therefore, monitoring over multiple seasons is necessary to get strong estimates of nesting female population sizes and of trends. Our surveys to date are building that information base and helping us understand where to focus our efforts.

Turtle Rehabilitation & Satellite Tagging

Five critically endangered Hawksbill turtles were rehabilitated and released in 2021 and 2022. Each of these was found with ‘floating syndrome’, which is a well-known condition that involves a build-up of gas within the turtle’s body. This condition prevents turtles from diving, putting them at risk of exposure and boat strikes, and also prevents them from feeding.

Under the approval of the National Center for Wildlife, these turtles were either cared for at Fakieh Aquarium in Jeddah or, in one case, at our base camp at The Red Sea until they had recovered and were in suitable condition for release. At that point, they were released, when possible, near where they had been found.

The release of these turtles was an opportunity for us to ‘satellite tag’ three of them so that we could subsequently gather data on their movement patterns and habitat use.

One of the Hawksbill turtles, which we named Amal, was released near Waqadi Island in May 2021. The map to the right, which shows where Amal spent most of her time following her release, was published recently in the journal “Animal Biotelemetry” (Tanabe et al., 2023).

This information helps us understand key foraging and use areas for this species and contributes to regional and global conservation efforts.