Endangered leatherback turtles just had their best nesting season ever

Leatherback sea turtles, the largest of all turtle species and endangered worldwide, had a record nesting season along the beaches of Palm Beach County, Florida, this year, and the researchers counting every nest say it is the best news they have had in a long time. Leatherbacks can grow to more than 1,000 pounds and travel thousands of miles of open ocean before returning to lay their eggs on the same stretch of sand where they hatched. Counting them is slow, patient work, often done at night with a flashlight and a clipboard. A record season means more nests, more hatchlings, and more tiny turtles making the long scramble down to the water. The odds against any single hatchling are steep, roughly one in a thousand reaching adulthood. The researchers count them anyway, every one.