They cover great distances foraging across the seas mainly for jelly fish, sponges, sea grasses, algae and pelagic crustaceans. One tagged leatherback has bean known to travel 2,700 miles from French Guyana to New Jersey. Another tugged in South Africa was found in Malindi, Kenya . There are eight species of sea turtles. In most cases the males are easy to identify by their long tails, which help grasp the females during mating.
All species are at risk.
Now is the time to either save them or lose them for ever. All begin active life as tiny hatchlings that dash for the sea against dismal odds, with less than a one per cent chance of living to maturity. When hatchlings emerge from the sand it is thought they head for the sea because the water is brighter and, as experiments have shown, by crawling away from the land's higher horizon. Once in water they have an inborn sense of magnetic direction - a biological compass of sorts. This compass and the direction of waves are presumed to navigate them throughout their lives on their migrations routes.