Ventura CountyThursday, November 5
A rare olive ridley sea turtle nest turns up on a Ventura beach
The Daily Oxnard team
If you walk San Buenaventura State Beach, there's a new neighbor. An olive ridley turtle laid eggs there Sunday, the third documented natural sea turtle nest on the U.S. West Coast. U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials said they won't relocate the eggs, and beachgoers are asked to keep their distance.
- Location: near Ventura Pier on San Buenaventura State Beach
- Incubation: 45 to 60 days, with officials monitoring
- Relocation: none planned; fencing surrounds the nest
Weeks earlier, wildlife officials confirmed the first-ever recorded natural nesting for any sea turtle species on the U.S. West Coast. Federal biologists moved both Orange County nests over fears that high tides could flood them.
Orange County's two nests were found and moved in September
- Sept. 16An olive ridley lays eggs near Surfside in Seal Beach.
- Sept. 19Another turtle lays eggs in Huntington Beach, about eight miles south.
- Sept. 25Biologists move both nests to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
Source: KTLA
KTLA reports that an extreme marine heat wave and a strong El Niño have pushed ocean temperatures closer to those where the turtles nest. The Orange County eggs could hatch at any time.
700 milesfrom the old northernmost nesting site, in Baja California Sur
KCRA reported the Ventura nest is the northernmost documented for the species on the West Coast.
Sources: KTLA, Ventura County Star, KCRA, LAmag