Loggerhead Turtles in Turkey 2025

If you love seeing sea turtles in their natural habitat, the beaches of Turkey’s Eastern Mediterranean region (the coasts of Adana, Mersin, and Hatay; Çıralı Beach) are a place you have to visit. Green and loggerhead sea turtles (aka Caretta) call the coasts home in the summer and lay their eggs before heading back to sea.

Once, there were 434 nests on Akyatan beach, and about 10,500 turtles emerged from eggs in those nests. People from the Wildlife Protection and National Parks Directorate and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) do their best to help baby turtles reach the sea after their birth and stay safe during this journey. Unfortunately, over 200 dead turtles have washed ashore across the Turkish coasts over the past two years. The thing is that lots of them suffer from the consumption of plastic materials. That’s why volunteers try hard to save the reptiles and prevent their extinction.