Baby turtle's first steps - BBC

finally two hours after sunset help I see movement so this little crater that is forming here shows me where exactly they're gonna pop we're coming to that moment world this is the beginning of the end yep it's ahead there it is right there [Music] it's moving come on it is pretty normal that you get one of to come in ahead of everybody else there's the head sticking out soon there's gonna be a flipper there's another one coming up right there my guess is that the rest of the group is sitting right underneath and another nest is starting to erupt [Music] once the hatchlings start there's no stopping them [Music] finally we can see that passion another life is definitely worthwhile [Music] they look very healthy and very active well there are just beautiful little turtles [Music] well this is absolutely incredible these tiny turtles have just emerged from their underground nest and they've helped each other on the way up to the surface and now they're here there'll be a little period of confusion they'd have orientation until they work out which way the ocean is and then they'll go our hatchlings have been able to develop in clean sand avoiding the danger of microbes on the main beach they have been protected from predators whilst inside the nest and they have survived a potentially lethal incubation temperatures thanks to the shade cloth over the hatchery they are just driven by an innate desire to get to the ocean one nipple you really wonder [Music] the hatchlings from the two nests make it to the ocean before midnight [Music] it takes another couple of days and nights before everyone is on their way [Music] in the end 424 baby turtles successfully emerge from the five nests in the hatchery [Music] we put 485 eggs in so that gives us a hatching success rate of 87% that's more than 10 times the normal rate on the main beach unfortunately eggs incubating outside the hatchery during the dry season are unlikely to survive the lethal temperatures when the cooler season returns hatching rates will improve significantly so if the females lay their eggs on less used and therefore less contaminated sections of the beach [Music] sometimes this beach is capable of foolish impulses of hatchlings tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of nests that are laid in this healthier sand then you can imagine a pulse or very large numbers of hatchlings that are going to make it into the ocean despite the low hatching rates Roland thinks that overall survival rates for all the ridley hatchlings may be higher from this era by the beach than from other beaches where turtles nest alone the impact of predation on that high number of hatchling than to be lower so those hatchlings are going to have a better chance of surviving to a size that will escape most predation safety in numbers may help these masts nesting all the Ridley's but more must be done to protect them in our oceans [Music] for Roldan this departure is the culmination of a groundbreaking and revealing experiment the knowledge acquire here is going to help us gather more information about this population and understand how in my persist over time or how it might be affected by a changing world you [Music]

Channel: BBC

Views: 177,304

Rating: 4.7768445 out of 5

Keywords: BBC iPlayer, arribada, olive ridley sea turtles, sea turtles, turtles, turtle, Costa Rica, Central America, Nature's Turtle Nursery: Secrets from the Nest, turtle baby, baby animals, cute animal, pygmy, adorable animal, most amazing animal, turtles born, beach, babies, baby, cute animal pictures, super cute animals, nest, turtle hatch, turtle runs on beach

Id: HYF_vUBFSsA

Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 26 2018