There are eight species of marine turtles with the Green Sea Turtle being the largest of the hard shelled sea turtles. Sea Turtles inhabit all temperate and tropical oceans, spending virtually all their time in the water. Only females leave the seas, when they come ashore to rest; a male may never leave the ocean in its entire lifetime. Because of this we know very little of marine turtles movement, navigational ability, or their development from infancy to adult.

Green Sea Turtles we know travel great distances between their feeding and nesting ground. They spend the majority of their time in warmer, shallower waters near the shorelines of continents and islands, making it easier to find seagrasses and algae, crabs, snails and mussels and small fish to eat. In 1954 the father of sea turtle research, Archie Carr, setup a camp at Tortuguero, Costa Rica to learn how to protect what he considers "the most valuable reptile in the world". The research is slow and to this day, scientists are not sure where the species grows to maturity, or how long it takes and they can only speculate what its survival rates are. All sea turtles begin life as tiny hatchlings dashing for the surf. Those that are not eaten by swooping birds and marine predators seem to spend years drifting on the high seas, eating pelagic crustaceans, jellyfish and algae. When reaching maturity the female can migrate a distance of up to 2,800 miles to the very same beach where she was hatched, to lay her eggs. The sex of a hatchling is determined by their incubation temperature. At 82°F hatchlings are male; at 90°F they are all female. A female will lay 100 hard shelled eggs in a hole she has dug with her front flippers. The then pushes the sand over the eggs in the hole so it is difficult for predators to find the location of the nest. The eggs hatch within 2 months and the hatchlings try to make their way to the water.

Turtle eggs can be preyed upon by humans who believe they are an aphrodisiac and an energizing protein. The eggs are sold in bars as a raw snack. Other predators of the turtle eggs are coyotes, feral hogs, raccoons and skunks. If the eggs manage to reach the hatching stage, small turtles making their way from nest to sea can be eaten by gulls, ravens, frigate birds, crabs, sharks and groupers waiting for a meal of young turtle. If a young turtle makes it to the ocean and away from the sea predators, it enters a period of time called "the lost years". Humans rarely see them again until they reach maturity. Turtle experts believe somehow hatchlings make their way to rafts of seaweed and sargassum, feeding and drifting until they have become large enough to travel through the ocean. It is estimated that one per thousand hatchlings will survive to adulthood.

A mature Green Sea Turtle can be up to 5 feed long and weigh up to 400 pounds. They reach sexual maturity at 10 to 15 years and their breeding season goes from October to February. The turtle will carry her eggs for 7 to 10 weeks and will lay approximately 100 each batch. Green Sea Turtles live alone and can swim submerged for periods of up to 5 hours. Green Sea Turtles shed big salty tears and appear to cry just as humans do. The tears are a result of the turtle getting a lot of salt from the ocean water they drink. In order for the turtle to stay alive it must get rid of the extra salt in its body and will do so by shedding tears.

Green Sea Turtles can swim 15 miles per hour. A Green Sea Turtle's life span is 40-50 years. Today, Green Sea Turtle populations have been decimated by overhunting, pollution, death in shrimping trawlers' nets, nesting areas populated with hotels and resorts and the harvesting of turtle eggs. In the 1990's we find the Green Sea Turtle on the brink of extinction. Thanks to men like Archie Carr, nesting areas like Tortuguero, Cost Rica, have become a protected National Park and the people have been educated to understand a live turtle can benefit the community, and the local economic base is no longer turtle harvest but ecotourism. Federal laws have been passed to require shrimping trawlers nets to be equipped with Turtle excluder devices. The U.S. and 115 other countries have banned import or export of sea turtle products. U. S. biologists have set up research projects across the globe to protect these ancient beasts from being lost forever. The Big Island of Hawaii has established a Green Sea Turtle refuge at Kiholo Bay, where turtles are tagged and studied and protected by law. The Mauna Lani Hotel, in conjunction with Oahu's Sea Life Park, raises baby sea turtles to maturity and then releases them into the ocean in hopes of a better survival rate. Turtle farms have been established in the Grand Caymans and seem to be promoting a boost in Turtle population. The Green Sea Turtle is in a race for survival. Let not the indifference of humankind be the end of the most valuable reptile in the world.