No rain but a sky streaked with lightning to accompany this Wednesday evening about forty tortillons towards the sea. These baby turtles hatched 51 days after the egg-laying of a loggerhead sea turtle on the night of July 16 to 17 on the beach of the Valras Plage casino.
It was Jean Michel, one of the Cestmed volunteers who saw them get out of the nest and reach the sea around 8:30 p.m.
They followed each other in single file, and in good shape. They walked with a determined step and quickly reached the sea which is rather calm.
A moving moment for volunteers
Even if very few of them saw them leave, the nest being a few meters from the sea, it happened very quickly, about thirty 200 volunteers from different associations who protected and watched the place of laying day and night found themselves on the spot.
“It’s a small step for tortillons, but a big leap for biodiversity on the Biterrois coast. Yann Geshors, association of Orpellières
Yann Geshors, the coordinator and naturalist at theAssociation Safeguarding the coastline of Orpellieres and Biterrois present since the beginning, regret a little not to have arrived in time. ” the main thing is that they reached the sea and naturally. No egg collection and incubator, we let nature take its course.
The mayor of Valras plage Daniel Ballester also did not attend the birth, but he is above all very proud to have been able, with volunteers from the town hall and associations, to protect the place of laying and pallow the brooding – that’s the term – to come to an end.
“We are amazed and we tell ourselves that we are not doing all this for nothing” Daniel Ballester, mayor of Valras-plage
This is only the beginning of a path that is not a long calm river for these little turtles, because unfortunately only one twist in 1000 reaches adulthood and one of them returns in 30 or 40 years to lay eggs on the beach where it was born.