NEW YORK: Newly hatched sea turtles are famous for racing into the ocean: flopping from their nests, down the sand and into the safety of the sea.
But a new study says they might not make it that far for much longer and says rising sea levels could pose more of a threat to the little critters than their sandy scramble.
The research, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, found that rising sea levels could threaten the viability of turtle eggs and lower the number of baby turtles successfully hatched.
It analysed one of the largest green turtle populations in the world, on Raine Island near the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef.
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On the island, the likelihood that an egg will hatch ranged from 12 to 36 per cent between 2011 and 2015. That’s compared with a typical hatch success rate of more than 80 per cent elsewhere in the world.
Researchers involved set out to determine what effect rising sea levels might have on turtle eggs when they were laid. Taking eggs from Raine Island to a lab, they inundated select groups of eggs with saltwater for up to six hours at a time.
They found that eggs that were inundated with saltwater for six hours or more were up to 30 per cent less likely to hatch.
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