Abstract
Abstract The crawl to the sea of freshly emerged hatchlings is a critical period in the life cycle of turtles, although it is short compared with their life span. Hatchlings face predation, human poaching, and heat stress. We examined the crawling behavior of hatchling olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles at an arribada beach at Ostional, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. We address the following: 1) How long does it take hatchlings to reach the sea? and 2) What factors affect the time required to reach the sea? We were particularly interested in the aspects that increase their success at reaching the sea, and timed hatchling movement on an experimental grid, and for those emerging naturally from nests. Except when the beach was guarded by villagers, black vultures (Coragyps atratus) were present all the time and captured nearly all the hatchlings emerging from first light (0500 hrs) until dark. Overall, the mean time to reach the sea was 19.2 min (SE = 0.3), mean distance was 27.7 m (SE = 0.5), and...
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