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From the tropics to Hollywood: these green sea turtles are surfing a post-industrial paradise [1]
['Jason Weisberger']
Date: 2025-09-04
In "Go North, Young Turtle," adventure and nature journalist Adam Skolnick explains how eastern Pacific green sea turtles, once hunted to the brink of extinction, are adapting to urban Southern California habitats, from San Diego Bay to Los Angeles waterways.
I recently attended a lecture describing the monitoring and research project being conducted by the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, observing the green sea turtles of Long Beach, CA. I was thrilled to see an old friend, Adam Skolnick's, article describing his sighting in Marina Del Ray, and that they've made it as far north as Monterey. These are truly delightful creatures.
Boat captains and power plant workers first noticed them in San Diego Bay in the early 1970s—a dangerous time to be a sea turtle. Chelonia mydas range across the world's tropical and subtropical seas; throughout the 1970s and '80s, they were hunted across much of the tropics for their meat. Locals also ransacked their eggs, another delicacy. Meanwhile, shrimp trawlers and gillnet boats decimated migrating turtles as bycatch. Protections that came into effect in 1978 in the United States and in 1990 in Mexico helped green turtle numbers in the region bounce back, and now, in an era of shifting climate and unprecedented biodiversity loss, this once-endangered population has moved into new—and unexpected—territory. NOAA officially began monitoring the turtles in California in 1997, and Seminoff became the eyes of the program a few years later. He's watched on satellite data as icons representing tagged turtles squiggle through some of Los Angeles's crowded marinas. They gather in an industrial river inland from the cranes and container ships of Los Angeles Harbor, and in other toxic, polluted, and busy waterways. "These are completely urban turtles," Seminoff says. He believes that San Diego Bay was the first stop in what has since become a significant expansion of the turtles' historical range. Seminoff has ideas about why this population of green turtles have become a rare conservation success story. "They're very curious creatures," he says. "Always on the move, looking around. They share a stick-to-itiveness." You might say they've got chutzpah.
bioGraphic
Monitoring Green Sea Turtles in the San Gabriel River of Southern California via NIH
Previously:
• Watch baby sea turtles do a happy dance (video)
• How sea turtles can help detect cyclones
• Florida sea turtles predominately born female due to climate change
• Endangered sea turtle rebounding thanks to COVID-19 and indigenous peoples
[END]
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https://boingboing.net/2025/09/04/from-the-tropics-to-hollywood-these-green-sea-turtles-are-surfing-a-post-industrial-paradise.html
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