Record hatch: 12,000 sea turtles return to a beach once given up for lost
Decades of conservation work on Praia do Forte pay off in one extraordinary night.
By Luana Ferreira 4 hours ago · 4 min read Bahia, Brazil
Volunteers on Praia do Forte counted more than 12,000 loggerhead hatchlings scrambling toward the surf in a single 48-hour window this week — the largest recorded hatch on the beach in a century.
The site was declared functionally extinct for nesting turtles in the late 1980s. A patient decades-long program of nest protection, beach lighting reform and community education has quietly reversed the trend.
"We had nights with three nests when I started," said program director Isabel Correia. "This week we had three hundred."