The Sand South of Tower 15 Could Soon Be a Sea Turtle's Home Beach

The call that reached Huntington Beach Fire Department Marine Safety on Wednesday, September 16, was about a possibly injured sea turtle near Surfside. The lifeguards who showed up found a turtle that wasn't hurt at all. It was laying eggs.

Three days later it happened again, this time close to home for anyone who walks the strand. HBFD lifeguards answered another sea turtle sighting near the Huntington Beach Pier and found a second turtle digging a nest. The Los Angeles Times put that nest just south of Tower 15. NOAA Fisheries calls the Surfside nest the first ever recorded for any sea turtle species on the U.S. West Coast.

The eggs are no longer on the beach. If they hatch, the plan is to bring the hatchlings back to the beach where their mothers dug the nests. And the federal agencies running this response are now planning for the chance that this was not a one-time event.

Four Weeks, Two Nests, 204 Eggs

The Los Angeles Times described the Surfside nest as sitting on a stretch of sand by the oceanfront condos on Surfside Avenue. NOAA puts the two nests about 8 miles apart.

The early reports weren't sure whether the same turtle had come ashore twice. NOAA settled it. Dr. Cali Turner Tomaszewicz, a research biologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, compared the two turtles' body shapes, barnacle placement and scute patterns. Scutes are the large plates on the shell, and NOAA likens their pattern to a fingerprint. The comparison showed two different females.

Why the Eggs Went to Long Beach

The Surfside nest stayed where its turtle left it for nine days, and the pier nest for six. Each was fenced, roped off and marked with interpretive signs while crews watched ocean conditions. Then Hurricane Polo started pushing dangerous surf and high tides toward the coast. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the team had to decide whether to leave the eggs in place or move them before the water reached them.

Early on Friday, September 25, biologists dug up 100 eggs from the Huntington Beach nest and 104 from the Seal Beach nest and drove them to the Aquarium of the Pacific. The Aquarium's announcement gave high surf, storm-driven erosion and flooding, and high tides as the reasons. The eggs now sit in a temperature-controlled setup, and Aquarium staff watch them closely.

USFWS says it usually prefers the least intrusive conservation measures it can use and called this an exceptional situation.

The Hatch Window, Worked Out

Agencies keep saying "early November." NOAA says olive ridley nests usually incubate for 45 to 60 days. Count that range forward from each laying date and you get:

1. Surfside eggs, laid Sept. 16: roughly Oct. 31 to Nov. 15
2. Pier eggs, laid Sept. 19: roughly Nov. 3 to Nov. 18

Those ranges come from typical incubation times. Neither agency has given a hatch date. USFWS describes the timing as "approximately early November" and says the eggs will hatch only if they are viable.

Viability is still the open question. NOAA's page, last updated October 3, says that because this is a first, a lot is unknown about the eggs, including whether they were fertilized. The USFWS update from October 13 still treats hatching as an "if."

Where a Release Would Happen

If the eggs hatch, the hatchlings won't be released off a boat or from a pier in Long Beach. NOAA says they would go back to the beaches where the eggs were laid, so they can cross the sand to the water. USFWS says partners plan to release them near the original nest sites, and that warmer water tied to El Niño may make a natural release possible. The Los Angeles Times reported that a release would happen as soon as possible, and the Orange County Register reported it would happen at night.

For Huntington Beach, that means the hatchlings from the pier nest would most likely start out on the stretch south of Tower 15.

The plan matters because of how olive ridleys behave as adults. NOAA says adult females show high fidelity to the areas where they hatched, and that about 15 years after hatching, some return to nest on the beach where they were born. These eggs were incubated in Long Beach and would be carried back to the sand, which has never happened on this coast before. So nobody can promise how that instinct plays out. But a release near the pier gives it a chance to start on Huntington Beach sand.

No date, time or public viewing plan for a release has been announced. USFWS says it will post updates as incubation goes on and the release plan takes shape.

Why Agencies Expect More Nests

The closest place olive ridleys usually nest is the western Cape region of Baja California, near Todos Santos. NOAA says a few scattered nests turn up near Magdalena Bay, and nothing farther north had ever been recorded until September. Mexico's nesting season runs from about July to December, and these turtles came ashore during the peak.

NOAA says nobody knows exactly why these turtles nested in Orange County. It names warm sea surface temperatures from ongoing marine heatwaves and the incoming 2027 El Niño as likely key factors. It adds that olive ridleys are nomadic and highly migratory, so their adaptable nature, and perhaps navigation errors, may also have played a part.

Two more facts suggest the response isn't finished. NOAA notes that an olive ridley typically lays two to three nests a season, about two weeks apart and in the same general area, and says it is watching for more nesting. USFWS says it is writing an interim conservation strategy in case sea turtles keep nesting in California.

These are protected animals. USFWS says olive ridley populations along Mexico's Pacific coast are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and it names bycatch and egg harvesting as the main threats. NOAA describes the federal law as prohibiting harassing, harming, pursuing or collecting any listed species.

If You See One on Your Morning Walk

Both nests were found because someone saw a turtle and called it in. Here is the beachgoer guidance from the City of Huntington Beach and NOAA Fisheries:

• Keep your distance. Give nesting sites plenty of space and leave fencing and signs alone.
• Report a sighting through NOAA's West Coast Sea Turtle Reporting form, or tell a lifeguard.
• Call about a stranded turtle on the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Stranding Hotline at (562) 506-4315.

The city's post also says what to look for. Olive ridleys are the smallest sea turtles, weighing up to 100 pounds and measuring about 2.5 to 3 feet long. That's small enough that a passerby could mistake one for an injured animal, which is exactly how the Surfside call started.

Visit Huntington Beach put the nests at the top of its October "What's New" list. Huntington Beach has long called itself Surf City. Soon it could also be where the first sea turtles hatched from a West Coast nest are released into the ocean.

At Mike Doyle, we've lived in Orange County all our lives, and we're watching the beach south of Tower 15 for news like everyone else. If you'd like an Orange County agent who keeps up with what happens on your stretch of the coast, from turtle nests to new restaurants on Main Street, reach out anytime. We're also glad to share an instant home valuation whenever you want to see where your home stands.