島 の すなはま に 来る うみがめ

On summer nights, sea turtles come up onto the sandy beaches of islands in southern Japan.

The mother turtle digs a hole with her hind legs at a spot where the sound of the waves still reaches.

She lays more than a hundred eggs and covers them with sand to hide them.

It is said that if the sand is warm, females hatch, and if it is cool, males hatch.

Two months later, the tiny hatchlings emerge from the sand, look at the moonlight, and run to the sea.

Only about one in ten thousand reaches adulthood, so researchers are pushing forward with efforts to protect the turtles.