Conservation Technique of the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas L. 1758) Nests under the Risk of Tidal Inundation with Hatcheries, on Samandağ Beach, Turkey

Bektaş Sönmez, Şükran Yalçın Özdilek

Abstract


Eggs of green turtles are at risk from tidal inundation were transferred in hatcheries on Samandağ during nesting season of 2004. In this study; four hatcheries were constructed as well as conducting a control group for each hatchery. It was found that the hatching success in hatcheries was similar to natural nests, but it was higher than control group whereas, the number of dead hatchlings in hatcheries was higher than natural nests. These differences might be due to temperature of nest, the mean nest temperature of hatcheries was higher, and the mean incubation duration was shorter than natural nests. The moisture content differ among nests, and control group nests have higher moisture content than the others. Even if hatcheries have higher hatching success, they have possible negative effect on viability of hatchlings in nest and natural sex ratio. More research is needed on the impacts of hatchery such as alteration of sex ratio and viability of hatchlings in nest.


Keywords


Chelonia mydas; hatchery; conservation; hatching success; Samandağ

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.30906/1026-2296-2013-20-1-19-26

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