• The event held at El Parador beach in El Saler was attended by the Generalitat Valenciana and the Valencia City Council, scientists, and schoolchildren on World Environment Day.

• The company Romar Global Care has sponsored two of the turtles, one of them equipped with a satellite transmitter to track its route in the open sea.

Twenty-one sea turtles have entered the sea for the first time today from El Parador beach in El Saler, Valencia, after being raised for a year at the Oceanogràfic of Valencia as part of its Foundation’s Head Starting conservation project.

The release was presided over by the Minister of the Environment, Infrastructure and Territory of the Generalitat Valenciana, Vicente Martínez Mus, together with the Regional Secretary, Raúl Mérida, the General Director of Natural and Animal Environment, Luis Gomis, the Mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, and the Councilor for the Environment, Juan Carlos Caballero.

Also participating were the president and vice president of the Oceanogràfic Foundation, Celia and Mercedes Calabuig, the assistant director of the Oceanogràfic, Marta Calabuig, as well as the director of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Ana Ortells, and the CEO of Global Omnium, Dionisio García.

They were joined by representatives of the company Romar Global Care, technicians from the University of Valencia, volunteers, and schoolchildren from the CEIP Padre Manjón de La Torre, one of the centers affected by the DANA.

Each of the attendees contributed symbolically to the release of a turtle into the sea, including six specimens placed in the hands of the participating children, reinforcing the educational component of the event.

During the event, it was recalled that, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of loggerhead turtle nestings on the Valencian coast, which could be related to climate change and the progressive colonization of the western Mediterranean by this species.

In the last two years, 17 nests have been recorded in the Valencian Community, two of them in El Saler.

More than 600 turtles in the Head Starting project

The group of turtles that entered the sea today comes from the second nest recorded in the Valencian Community during the 2024 season. It was discovered on Saint John’s night, June 23, when a female of the species Caretta caretta came out of the sea to spawn precisely on the beach where the release took place today.

Given the risk to the viability of the eggs, and as is usual in nesting cases, part of the nest was moved to a protected area of the Albufera Natural Park, where it remained under surveillance 24 hours a day, and the rest was incubated in the Oceanogràfic facilities.

Thanks to the Head Starting program, the hatchlings grow in a controlled environment until they reach an optimal size and weight that increases their chances of survival in the open sea. While in natural conditions only one in a thousand turtles reaches adulthood, this protocol raises that success rate to 90%.

Since the beginning of the Head Starting project, more than 600 sea turtles from the nests of the Valencian Community have been introduced to the natural environment thanks to the collaboration between the Oceanogràfic Foundation, the University of Valencia, the Generalitat Valenciana, and other public and private entities.

Sponsorship of two turtles by Romar Global Care

One of the turtles this morning had a satellite tracking device incorporated, financed by the company Romar Global Care – who has sponsored two of the animals – which will allow the scientific team to learn more about their migratory routes and behavior patterns in the open sea.

The Oceanogràfic Foundation has stressed the importance of this type of initiative as a conservation tool and has thanked citizens for their involvement in the detection of nests and in the protection of hatchlings during the custody process.