Turtle nesting in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

The rapidly increasing human population is placing pressure on many fragile ecosystems, especially coastal areas, which have high human densities and are popular tourist destinations. Human use of nesting beaches may include diurnal and nocturnal activities, vehicle use on beaches and artificial lighting effects from beachfront developments. These may later affect turtle behaviour and nesting substrates/surfaces so that conditions may become unfavourable to hatching and nesting, leading to increased nest predation levels. Considering that just 2.4 per cent of the entire Maltese coastline is sandy and the tourist development along such shores (with hardly a light pollution-free corner) it is easy to see why it is virtually impossible to reintroduce nesting marine turtles to the islands.