Beaches empty, caretta carettas to lay eggs soon

The world-famous beaches of Antalya, the home of endangered caretta carettas, fell silent this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. As the weather gets warmer, the sea turtles are expected to go to the beach to lay eggs in adult nesting areas later this month.

People are prohibited from entering the beaches as the egg laying periods of caretta caretta type sea turtles, which are one of the endangered species in the world, will start soon.

Antalya's Mediterranean beaches have nine important nesting beaches for loggerhead sea turtles and green sea turtles.

There are between 68 and 1,053 caretta carettas and between two and eight green new sea turtle hatchlings - egg laying areas - on the 29.3-kilometer beach in Belek.

The number of hatchlings is between 23 and 105 on the 3.2-kilometer Çıralı beach; 41 to 137 hatchlings on the 7.8-kilometer Alanya-Demirtaş beach; 14 to 53 hatchlings on the 6.8-kilometer Gaziapaşa beach; 39 to 109 hatchlings on the 8.5-kilometer Demre beach; 50 to 270 caretta caretta and three green sea turtle hatchlings on the 16.1-kilometer Manavgat-Kızılot beach; 75 and 305 caretta caretta and seven green sea turtle hatchlings on the 14-kilometer Kumluca beach; 35 and 127 caretta caretta and two green sea turtle hatchlings on the 14-kilometer Kaş-Patara beach and four to 23 on the 3.7 Kemer-Tekirova beach.

'No significant threats right now'

Due to the lack of tourism, mobility on the beaches, many problems such as camping on the caretta beaches such as Çıralı, Olimpos, Belek, Boğazkent, Kundu and Patara, setting up tents, lighting fires, the sunbeds occupation of the hotels, and the lighting of hotels and summer houses have come to an end.

The Çıralı Coastal Protection Coordination...