A 220 kilogram turtle in a Tulum hotel pool, and it was not the last one

Firefighters in Tulum slid a board under a green sea turtle stranded in the pool at the Caleta Tankah beach club over the weekend, lifted it clear, and carried it to the sand.

A board under the shell, then a walk across the sargassum

The animal was found in the beach club's pool, according to Marcrix Noticias, which reported that the turtle's size and weight required several firefighters to work together. They worked the board underneath the body, raised it as a group, and moved it out of the pool area toward the water.

The route to the sea ran through sargassum. Rescuers crossed a stretch of beach where the seaweed had piled up before reaching a point where the turtle could be set down. Once on the sand, it moved into the water on its own.

This is the second time in August that a sea turtle has been pulled out of a swimming pool in the municipality, and both cases have occurred during the nesting season, when adult females leave the water at night and cross the beach in search of a place to dig.

Gabriel Castillo cleared the turtle before anyone moved it

Before the release, Gabriel Castillo, who heads Tulum's sea turtle protection and conservation program, examined the animal for injuries and confirmed it was in good condition to return to its habitat. Quintana Roo Hoy, which also reported the rescue, cited Castillo as the source of the count of two turtles found in municipal pools.

Marine biologists and staff from the municipal sustainability and environment office took part in the operation, coordinating the handling of the turtle before it was carried down to the beach.

Nothing in the accounts published so far explains how the turtle got into the pool, how long it had been there, or whether it had already nested that night.

The 220 kilogram turtle at Bespoke Tulum came first

The earlier case was heavier in every sense.

A green turtle of roughly 220 kilograms, about 505 pounds, was found in the pool of the Bespoke Tulum hotel on the Playa del Carmen to Tulum highway. Sal! Revista reported that the animal appeared in the pool on a Sunday and that the biologists Rocío Peralta and Gabriel Castillo coordinated the first stage of the response, with Tulum firefighters called in to do the lifting.

Civil Protection worked alongside the fire department and the biologists to get the turtle out and down to the coast, where it was released. According to the same account, no one could say how long it had been in the pool water, and the hotel was not mentioned in the fire department's own description of the rescue.

Two rescues, two beachfront properties, one municipality, one month.

Why nesting season puts sea turtles in Tulum swimming pools

Quintana Roo's nesting season opens officially on May 1 and runs through the autumn. Along the Riviera Maya and Tulum, the Programa de Conservación de Tortugas Marinas Riviera Maya Tulum, run by Flora, Fauna y Cultura de México, protects females, nests and hatchlings on 38 effective kilometers of nesting beach stretching from Solidaridad down into the Sian Ka'an reserve.

Green turtles and loggerheads are the two species most associated with this stretch of coast. Both are protected under Mexican federal law, and the green turtle is classified as endangered under the NOM-059 wildlife standard.

A nesting female comes ashore in the dark, hauls herself up the beach, and orients by light and slope. Anything that interrupts that path can send her the wrong way. On a coastline where the first line of beachfront is almost continuous with hotel and beach club construction, the wrong way can end up on a pool deck.

Sargassum has not been blamed, and it has not been ruled out either

No authority has established that sargassum caused either incident, and neither the rescue accounts nor the conservation program have made that claim.

What the seaweed does do is change the beach. Where it accumulates in volume, it forms a barrier a turtle has to cross in both directions, and it alters the profile of the sand she reads on the way up. The Caleta Tankah rescue itself had to cross a sargassum bank to reach the water, which is a measure of how much material is sitting on that shoreline right now.

Both animals returned to the sea without any reported injuries. The nesting season still has weeks to run, and the two properties involved are not the only ones in Tulum with a swimming pool a few meters from the sand.

Should beachfront hotels and clubs in Tulum be required to secure their pool areas during nesting season? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.