Final turtle nest of summer hatches in Malta: record-breaking season ends with 63 new loggerheads

**Last turtle nest of summer begins hatching**
*Nature’s final encore draws crowds, scientists, and hope to Għadira Bay*

By 5:30 a.m. yesterday, the first orange streaks of dawn were still fighting off the night chill when an excited ripple ran through the knot of pyjama-clad children on Għadira’s wooden board-walk. “It moved!” squealed eight-year-old Maya Vella from Mellieħa, pointing at the cordoned patch of sand. A tiny loggerhead turtle—no bigger than a €2 coin—had just punched through its papery eggshell and, with prehistoric determination, begun its dash to the Mediterranean. By sunset, 62 more siblings had followed, marking the last documented nest of Malta’s 2024 marine-turtle season and capping the island’s most successful breeding summer on record.

The clutch, discovered on 18 June by local kite-surfer Luke Camilleri, brings this year’s island-wide total to four nests—double the annual average since monitoring began in 1992. “We’ve never seen this many,” said Dr. Elena Mifsud, field coordinator for Nature Trust-FEE Malta’s Turtle Rescue Programme, as volunteers measured sand temperature and checked for late stragglers. “Climate change, cleaner beaches and stricter lighting regulations are all playing a part, but public attitude is the real game-changer. Ten years ago someone might have pocketed the eggs; today they WhatsApp us within minutes.”

That shift is personal for 72-year-old Nenu Borg, a retired fisherman who drove from Żurrieq at dawn with his grandchildren. “When I was their age we hunted them,” he admitted, eyes fixed on the miniature flippers carving S-shaped trails. “We thought turtles were endless, like the sea itself. Watching this nest feels like asking forgiveness.” His grandson, 11-year-old Kayden, listened wide-eyed, clutching a waterproof leaflet titled “Turtles Are Not Tourist Souvenirs”—one of 3,000 printed for schools after last year’s viral TikTok of a British tourist posing on a nesting female.

The cultural resonance runs deep. In Maltese folklore, the “fekruna kbira” (big turtle) was believed to guide drowned sailors to the afterlife; fishermen once painted its image on prows for luck. Today, the creature is a classroom staple—every Year 4 student receives a STEAM kit that includes a 3-D-printed hatchling and a QR code linking to real-time nest cams. “We’re literally growing conservationists before our eyes,” said Antonella Briffa, a teacher at St Monica School, Birkirkara, whose class adopted Nest #3 at Ramla tal-Mixquqa. Yesterday her pupils followed a livestream from hospital beds after chemotherapy, cheering each emergence. “For these kids, turtles equal hope,” Briffa added.

Local business has also cottoned on. The Mellieħa Hotel Association reports a 17 % spike in September bookings labelled “turtle tourism,” with guests requesting bay-view rooms “near the nest.” Cafés have renamed pastries: yesterday, Caffe Berry in Balluta served a “Hatchling Bliss” croissant—matcha-dyed to mimic seawater—donating 50 c to every sale. Even the national airline joined in: last week an Air Malta flight to Rome adopted “Loggerhead 4” as its call-sign, with cabin crew wearing turquoise pins.

Yet the euphoria is tempered by science. Only one in 1,000 hatchlings reaches adulthood; ghost nets, plastic and speedboats await offshore. To boost odds, volunteers formed a human corridor to the waterline yesterday while Fisheries Patrol boats cut engine noise. Each baby was weighed, measured and fitted with a pea-sized satellite tag funded by HSBC Malta Foundation. “Data from last year’s survivors show they head straight to the Atlantic,” explained Mifsud. “If we can protect their migratory highway, Malta becomes a crucial pit-stop in a global story.”

As the final straggler disappeared into the surf, the crowd burst into spontaneous applause, phones held aloft like secular votive candles. Someone began singing “Santwarju,” the old fisher’s hymn; voices swelled across the darkening water. For a moment, the island’s usual soundtrack of cranes and car horns was replaced by lapping waves and the collective intake of 200 held breaths.

By morning, the nest site will be levelled, the protective cage removed, the sand raked smooth to deter predators. But the memory will linger—in Maya’s classroom journal, in Nenu’s reconciled heart, in the unseen turtle that, against all odds, may one day return to lay its own eggs on the same moonlit bay. Until then, Malta watches, waits and WhatsApps.