Blog: East Asia

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/thailand-sea-turtles-coronavirus-scli-intl-scn/index.html

Sea Turtles thriving in Thailand after beach closures

Researchers have found a very high number of sea turtles on the beaches in south Thailand, the highest in over 20 years. Phuket is Thailands most popular resort island, however many resorts have been put on strict lockdown from the coronavirus outbreak. This has a positive impact on marine wildlife, not just turtles, but many species are now gone up in numbers, which shows a large impact on marine conservation, and not just in Thailand, but all over the world. It takes about 60 days for sea turtle eggs to hatch and since Thailand has had strict lock downs since early march, there is now a huge number of healthy sea turtle hatchlings on the local beaches. This is due to not only lack of people on the beaches, but also because of less plastic waste and little to no artificial light, which can cause baby sea turtles to become disoriented, example would be night time beach lights, headlights from vehicles driving along shore, or peoples phone cameras. Some of the geographical aspects in this article are Thailand, which is a country in South East Asia. South Thailand where the coast line is along the Gulf of Thailand. The beach in south Thailand, which is now home to many hatchling sea turtles thriving.