Sea Turtles Just Nested in California for the First Time Ever, and 204 Eggs Are Now Safe in Long Beach

Two olive ridley sea turtles made history this September by laying nests on Southern California beaches, marking the first recorded nesting of the species on the entire U.S. West Coast. The first turtle nested at Seal Beach in broad daylight, surprising beachgoers and lifeguards, and three days later a second nested eight miles north at Huntington Beach.

Wildlife officials from NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved fast when extreme high tides and hurricanes Polo and Odalys threatened both nest sites. They rescued all 204 eggs and relocated them to climate-controlled incubators at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, giving the eggs their best possible shot at survival.

Olive ridley turtles are listed as Vulnerable and normally nest in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Nicaragua, so scientists think back-to-back marine heatwaves pushed them northward. Whether the eggs are viable remains uncertain, but the rescue effort itself is a rare hopeful climate story. What would you do if you spotted a sea turtle nest on your local beach?