Recent News
Zoological Society To Host “Reef Watch” EventWednesday, May 27, 2015
Polar explorer and environmentalist, Robert Swan OBE, once said: “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”
Francis Patton overjoyed with BZS link-up
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Teachers at Francis Patton are celebrating as they have received some very positive science results after tests sat by their Primary 6 students.
In the land of the lemur
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Lemurs look cute and fuzzy but being an expert on them is no picnic. Travis Steffens has trekked for miles across hostile terrain in blazing temperatures to find them.
New Tawny Frogmouth Chicks At BAMZ
Friday, May 08, 2015
The Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo is now playing host to two new inhabitants, a pair of tawny frogmouth chicks born approximately one month ago to parents Kermit and Duane, inhabitants of the Australasia exhibit.
Zoological Society puts accent on history
Monday, April 27, 2015
“Educating tomorrow’s environmentalists,” is the mission of the Bermuda Zoological Society, and while impassioning and empowering students to protect and conserve the environment is important, it is equally important to the BZS to educate adults — especially those who are teaching the next generation. We desire to provide them with the understanding and skills to help them set an example of how to make a difference for our natural world
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Latest News
All the latest updates and news from the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, and Zoo, one of Bermuda's leading visitor attractions!
Owain Johnston-Barnes
Published Oct 10, 2016 at 8:00 am (Updated Oct 10, 2016 at 12:46 am)
Historic discovery: almost 90 turtles hatched last summer
Mystery surrounds the origin of turtle hatchlings that shocked the island last summer.
Described by some as Bermuda’s “natural history event of the century”, almost 90 green turtles hatched last August at Builder’s Bay — the first recorded turtle hatching on the island for more than 90 years.
Despite genetic testing of several hatchlings who died before reaching the water, the origin of the turtle remains unknown.
Some believed that the hatchlings were the delayed result of the Operation Green Turtle transplant operation between 1968 and 1978, in which turtle eggs were brought to the island from Costa Rica by David Wingate.
Conservationists had hoped the turtles would return to Bermuda to nest when mature. Female turtles reach sexual maturity between the age of 25 and 35, but a turtle laying eggs for the first time at the age of 40 is not impossible.
Meanwhile, a second theory was that the female turtle could have come from the Florida population, which has boomed in recent years as the state has increased its own conservation efforts
However, according to a recent article in Hakai Magazine, genetic tests have found that there is a less than ten per cent chance the turtles descended from either Floridian or Costa Rican stocks.
Ann Meylan, a Florida-based sea turtle biologist who was on the island at the time of the hatching, working with the Bermuda Turtle Project, told the magazine that she collected tissue from three dead hatchlings, sending the samples to a genetics expert at the University of Georgia.
Dr Meylan suggested to the magazine that the turtles might have migrated from Mexico, which also saw an increase in turtle hatchings last year, but added: “The female turtle’s origin will have to remain a mystery for the time being.”
Green turtles were once very common in Bermuda, but use of the turtles for food and the increase of pests like rats severely diminished their numbers.
The hatchlings were first discovered by a member of the public, who noticed one turtle attempting to cross the road near the beach. He took the animal to the Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo, and a search of the area revealed almost a dozen of the animals struggling in long grass.
Researchers later found a total of 87 eggs buried in the beach, the majority of which appeared to have successfully hatched.