Sea turtles explore new, urban frontier; Scientists are closely studying the progress of two breakaway colonies that have settled in the San Gabriel River and San Diego Bay

From the Los Angeles Times:

In the foamy chop of the warm-water discharge flowing into the San Gabriel River from a Long Beach power plant, a green sea turtle, wide as a manhole cover, materialized Friday just a few yards from shore. A few minutes later, an even larger sea turtle surfaced in the murky water near the plant’s thicket of steel scaffolding, steam vents and transmission lines.

Green sea turtles usually have tropical haunts — teeming coral reefs or white sandy beaches where they lay eggs — but these chunky titans live more than a mile upstream in one of Southern California’s most ecologically degraded rivers.

Little is known about the colony of at least six urban sea turtles. But a joint study by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Aquarium of the Pacific aims to determine, among other things, what they’re doing in there.

“Right now, it’s a small group of what might be considered oddball turtles,” said Peter Dutton, a senior researcher with the fisheries service. “But we have a lot to learn about them. Are they part of a more complex sea-turtle migration dynamic than we ever imagined, or just lost wanderers?”

Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.

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