Loggerhead Sea Turtle

Caretta caretta

The loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) is a large marine turtle named for its broad head and powerful jaws. Adults have a reddish-brown carapace, a pale underside, and flippers built for long migrations through temperate and subtropical oceans. Juveniles spend years in open-water currents before many shift toward coastal feeding grounds. Loggerheads crush crabs, conchs, whelks, horseshoe crabs, and other hard-shelled prey, while also taking jellyfish and scavenged food. Nesting females come ashore at night on sandy beaches and may lay several clutches in a season.

Private ownership is not an appropriate context for loggerheads; care is limited to permitted rehabilitation centers, aquariums, research projects, and conservation programs. Field teams monitor nesting beaches, reduce artificial lighting, mark or relocate at-risk nests, and protect hatchlings from disorientation and disturbance. At sea, major management issues include shrimp trawl bycatch, longline hooks, vessel strikes, plastic ingestion, and warming sand that can skew hatchling sex ratios. Nonreleasable turtles in aquariums need large filtered saltwater systems, careful diet planning, and veterinary oversight, while releasable turtles are handled with minimal imprinting and returned as soon as they can survive.