Turtle Cooling Project News Today

The future of the Earth’s green turtles is in serious doubt because too few males are being born to keep procreating the species – but now it appears that the

Researchers find exposure to heavy metals cadmium and antimony and certain organic contaminants, accumulated by the mother and transferred to her eggs, may cause embryos to be feminized in green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas), a species already at risk of extinction from a current lack of male hatchlings.

<p><em>Researchers from Australia studied the influence of pollution on the sex ratio of clutches of sea green turtles. This species is at risk of extinction from a current lack of male hatchlings. They concluded that exposure to the heavy metals cadmium and antimony, accumulated by the mother and transferred to her eggs, may cause embryos to be feminized. Pollution may thus compound the female-biasing influence of rising global temperatures on green sea turtles. </em></p&gt...

Threatened green sea turtles at one beach in the northern Great Barrier Reef are almost entirely producing female hatchlings.