Guarding Greece's Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches

ARCHELON has monitored and protected loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nests in Greece since 1984, focusing on the key nesting grounds of Zakynthos, Kyparissia Bay in the Peloponnese, and Crete, which together host the largest loggerhead breeding population in the Mediterranean. Each season hundreds of trained volunteers patrol roughly 97 km of coastline, relocating threatened nests, fencing hatchlings' paths to the sea, and running a rescue centre for injured turtles founded in 1994. In its 2025 season the society recorded around 10,700 nests and estimated 490,000 hatchlings reaching the sea, continuing 42 years of unbroken monitoring.