WHAT WE DO

Threats and habitat protection

 

Beaches with sunbeds, bright street lights, noise and presence of humans during the night make it difficult for sea turtle to nest.

Protection measures include the removal and stacking away of sunbeds, turning lights off or reducing them to a minimum and minimal human presence on the beaches during the night. We conduct actions to raise awareness among visitors and businesses on all ARCHELON field projects.

A number of human activities that may occur throughout the year, have been observed to have negative impacts on the sand composition of nesting beaches, thus affecting nesting success. These include sand compaction by vehicles, seaweed and litter removal from beaches by heavy machinery, dune destruction by removing sand for constructions, planting of trees on the beach and road construction.

Coastal engineering projects may cause erosion and width reduction of the sandy nesting beaches. Any construction on the beachfront will accelerate coastal erosion, alter coast dynamics and bring about the degradation of nesting beaches.

The beaches with significant breeding populations have been included in the European Ecological network Natura 2000. ARCHELON teams visit the sites and inform local authorities on pressures from human activities. At the end of each season we publish reports on the implementation of protection measures on the major nesting beaches.

On the nesting beaches, ARCHELON researchers transfer to safer spots some nests that are at risk of flooding or light pollution in order to hatch safely.

They also place a protective cover to avoid nest trampling by visitors and predation by wild animals.

The chart shows the percentage of hatchlings that hatched from protected nests in 2020.

Recordings of 2020.