Where Do Loggerhead Sea Turtles Live?

The loggerhead turtles are highly nomadic marine turtles and their habitats are widely distributed throughout their lives. They undertake long migrations between their nesting sites and foraging grounds.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Habitat

Loggerhead turtles are found in tropical, temperate and subtropical coastal waters around the world. They do not, however, inhabit extremely cold waters. The primary habitats of the loggerheads are beaches and nearshore coastal waters.

In the U.S., they are the most abundant of all sea turtles. The barrier islands of North America embraces the largest number of nesting sites of the loggerheads while the range extends from North Carolina to the Florida Keys. The most famous nesting ground of these turtles is found in Florida, where 67,000 nests are made every year. These turtles often frequent Bahamas during winter. They are most commonly found in southeastern parts of the United States as well as the Gulf of Mexico.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Distribution

The loggerheads have circumglobal distribution and are widely distributed across the Indian, Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. They also occur in the Black sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the nesting beaches of these turtles occur across the western rims of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. In the Indian Ocean, they are found along the coasts of Arabian Sea, the Arabia as well as Africa.

Out of all the nesting sites worldwide, the U.S., Australia and Oman accounts for 88 percent of the loggerhead turtles. In the western hemisphere, the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge (ACNWR) is the main nesting ground of these turtles as it accounts for about 25 percent of the loggerheads found in the United States. There are about 1,000 to 2,000 nests of loggerheads in Western Australia.

In the East Atlantic, the Cape Verde Islands is the only main nesting ground of the loggerheads. In the Indian Ocean, Oman has the world’s second largest nesting grounds of these turtles and contains about 15,000 nests.

Sources:

“Loggerhead Sea Turtles, Caretta caretta ~ MarineBio.org.” MarineBio Conservation Society. Web. Accessed Tuesday, October 24, 2017

“Loggerhead Sea Turtle”. National Geographic

Casale, P. & Tucker, A.D. 2017. Caretta caretta. (amended version published in 2015) The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T3897A119333622

“Caretta caretta”. Encyclopedia of Life

“Loggerhead Turtle”. NOAA Fisheries