Eureka Natural History Tours

Leatherback turtle nesting @ Turtle Beach, Tobago

On April 26, 2017 during the New Moon at approximately 10pm at Turtle Beach, Tobago I along with others witnessed a Leatherback turtle (abt 400-600 lbs and abt 30-35 yrs old) emerging from the ocean onto the beach to nest her eggs. Lights are discouraged because they are looking for dark areas to lay their eggs.
This video shows the whole process of her digging the nest, laying her eggs approximately 100 eggs will be laid, then her covering the eggs up and then camouflaging the area away from predators, and finally her going back out to sea. The eggs will nest for 30-40 days and out of the 100 eggs she laid maybe only 2 will survive. During the nesting season she will come back to the same location every 14 days to lay another 100 eggs up to 8-10 times during the season.
This is a dark video and only red lights were used to prevent disturbing the nesting process.

SOS (Save Our Seaturtles) was there during this process to record her information and to tag her again since she had been there in previous years.

This was an absolutely amazing experience, and if you ever have the opportunity to do this I would definitely recommend it!!

Special thanks to Jason @ Eureka Natural History Tours