Galápagos Green Sea Turtle: Facts and Where to See It

Mating happens in the warmer months, and from December to March pregnant females wait off the shore for night to fall. A female crawls up the beach past the high-tide mark, digs a nest with her back flippers, lays 50 to 200 eggs and returns to the sea before sunrise. Some come back several times in one season.

• Incubation. The eggs lie in the warm sand for 45 to 55 days. Hotter nests produce more females.
• The race. A clutch tends to hatch at the same moment, which gives each hatchling a better chance. Cormorants, gulls, frigatebirds, crabs and hawks wait on the beach, and sharks and frigatebirds at sea.
• A long wait. The few that survive need 26 to 40 years to reach maturity.

The guide sighting records place nesting from December to June on the beaches of Espumilla on Santiago, Bachas on Santa Cruz and Punta Cormorant on Floreana, and from December to March at Bartolomé.

Green turtles live in the coastal waters of the whole archipelago and in tropical and subtropical seas around the Pacific islands. Two features tell them apart from other sea turtles: a serrated lower jaw and a single pair of scales over the eyes. Adults feed mainly on plants such as algae, while young turtles eat almost anything they find.

In Black Turtle Cove on Santa Cruz, a mangrove lagoon visited by panga, turtles rest and mate in the calm water between the roots, and the guide records rate it Likely all year.

Guide sighting records list green turtles at 12 visitor sites on 7 islands, and the guides note them in the water around the whole archipelago. 2 sites are rated Likely: Black Turtle Cove on Santa Cruz, where they rest among the mangroves, and Pinnacle Rock on Bartolomé, where snorkellers swim with them. 6 are rated Possible, among them the nesting beaches of Espumilla, Bachas and Punta Cormorant and the snorkel at Darwin Bay on Genovesa.

Green turtles are in Galápagos all year. December to March is when females gather off the beaches before nesting, and the guide records note nesting at several beaches through to June. In the next twelve months, 889 departures stop at a site where they are seen.

Yes, it is listed as Endangered. Around the world, turtles are hunted for shell, cartilage and meat and drown as bycatch in nets. Damaged foraging areas, fibrous tumours called fibropapillomas, and plastic in the sea add to the losses, and lights on shore lead hatchlings away from the water.

In Galápagos. Rats and cats eat hatchlings, feral pigs dig up whole nests, and a beetle can kill an entire clutch. The species is on CITES Appendix I, its trade is banned, and the Galápagos National Park protects it from fishing. Park rules keep visitors at least 2 metres (6 feet) from wildlife, on nesting beaches as in the water.

1. Expecting to watch eggs being laid. Females lay at night and leave before sunrise; by day you see tracks and nests, not the laying.
2. Walking on the upper beach. Nests lie above the high-tide mark. Stay on the marked path.
3. Swimming after a turtle. Let it pass and keep the 2-metre distance.
4. Skipping the panga ride. Black Turtle Cove, the surest place in the records, is visited only by panga.