The GREEN Page

THURSDAY 23RD     WORLD TURTLE DAY 

This is a day first created in 1990 by American Tortoise Rescue to celebrate turtles and tortoises. The day raises awareness of their disappearing habitat and the need to act to help their numbers thrive and survive. 

Pathways Sustainability students found out that sea turtles are deep divers and stay underwater for a long time. They eat snails, fish, mussels, and plants. They live for twenty or thirty years. Sea turtles can lay one hundred and ten eggs in a nest and have two to eight nests a season. Only one in one thousand turtles survive to adulthood. Hatchlings can become dehydrated if they do not make it to the ocean quick enough. They can become prey for birds, crabs, and other animals. 

In Costa Rica, South America volunteers work to monitor numbers of turtles that hatch and assist them to make their journey to the ocean. You can learn more about turtles and tortoises by visiting the library. Here are some interesting titles. One conservation story is about the friendship of a one hundred- and thirty-year-old tortoise named Mzee and a hippopotamus named Owen who live in a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya.