Picking up a hatchling for a photo can be a federal crime in Mexico

The state committee that coordinates turtle protection in Quintana Roo has asked residents, visitors and tour operators to stop picking up sea turtle hatchlings, after images of people handling them spread on social media.

Itandehui Ramos Bautista, the biologist who presides over the state Committee for the Protection, Conservation, Research and Management of Sea Turtles, said intent is beside the point. Some people are trying to help. Others want a photograph. In either case, she said, unnecessary handling can alter the animal's natural process and affect its run toward the water.

The request arrives in the middle of the hatching period and a bad month for the state's turtle camps. Environmental authorities in two Quintana Roo municipalities opened inquiries in August after videos circulated showing people picking up newly hatched turtles. Anyone walking a beach here between now and the close of the season can expect to come across one.

Handling alters the run to the water

The committee's guidance is short. Keep roughly three meters away. Do not touch the animal, do not carry it, do not photograph it from up close, and do not put yourself between it and the sea.

Ramos Bautista also asked people to speak to visitors who clearly do not know what to do, and to do it without hostility. Most of the handling she describes comes from people who are unaware of the rule rather than from people breaking it on purpose.

One detail in her explanation is worth holding onto. Hatchlings come out of the sand mostly at night, but they also emerge during the day, which is how an ordinary afternoon on the beach turns into an encounter nobody planned for.

Two videos, two investigations

The first case surfaced in early August near Xcaret, in the municipality of Solidaridad. Video circulating on social media showed a group of young people collecting hatchlings from the sand and placing them in an ice-filled cooler. Users who shared the clip also alleged the animals had been placed in an alcoholic drink, a claim no authority has confirmed. El Heraldo de México reported that at least one hatchling was believed to have died.

Kandy Mendoza, the Playa del Carmen secretary of sustainable environment and climate change, said the case was with the competent authorities. The Quintana Roo edition of El Heraldo later reported that Profepa, the federal environmental prosecutor, was investigating, and that those in the video were minors. Nobody has been publicly identified and no charges have been announced.

The second case came three weeks later in Cancún. A video showed a woman holding two hatchlings, reportedly on the grounds of the Hotel Emporio. Fernando Haro, director general of ecology in Benito Juárez, said his office had contacted Profepa to establish whether there were grounds for a complaint. He said the hotel neither authorized nor took part in what happened, and that the municipal warning to beachfront businesses was preventive rather than a sanction. His version of the rule, as reported by El Sureste, was simple: no contact, no interaction.

No comparable case has been reported publicly in Tulum this season.

Article 420 sets one to nine years in prison

Four species nest along the Quintana Roo coast: green, loggerhead, hawksbill and leatherback. All of them are listed under risk categories in Mexico's federal standard for species at risk, and their handling is governed by NOM-162-SEMARNAT-2012, which sets the criteria for protecting, conserving and managing sea turtles and their nesting habitat. Under that framework, handling is permitted only where necessary and only by authorized personnel.

The criminal exposure is set forth in Article 420 of the Federal Penal Code. It carries one to nine years in prison and a fine of 300 to 3,000 days for anyone who illicitly captures, harms, or kills a turtle, with up to three additional years when the conduct occurs in or affects a protected natural area. Whether a specific act meets that definition is for the authorities to decide, and neither of the August cases has reached that stage.

Where to report sea turtle hatchlings on the sand

The committee's instruction is to contact the turtle camp responsible for that stretch of coast, so trained staff can assess the situation and decide what to do. Where there is no camp nearby, the report goes through 911, which routes it to the competent authority.

That is the entire procedure. It does not include moving the animal, carrying it to the water, or standing guard over it.

Eight camps, 80 kilometers of Tulum coastline

Tulum has more of this infrastructure than any other municipality on the coast. Flora, Fauna y Cultura de México runs the Riviera Maya and Tulum sea turtle conservation program across 14 beaches in Tulum and Solidaridad, including Xcacel-Xcacelito, Chemuyil, Tankah, Kanzul, Punta Yuyum, and San Juan. The organization puts the program's total at more than 20 million hatchlings protected over three decades.

When the 2025 season opened, Armando Angulo, who heads the municipal sustainability directorate, said Tulum is the coastal municipality with the highest number of nesting turtles in Quintana Roo. Our report at the time counted eight camps run by different organizations along more than 80 kilometers of shoreline, including the Akumal Ecological Center, Fundación Ecobahía, Save Akumal, the CONANP national parks team and the municipal Kanan Áak brigade.

The current season opened in the spring, when the first loggerhead nests of 2026 were confirmed in Akumal, inside Tulum municipality, as we reported in June. Municipal authorities set the close of the protection period at November 1. Before it began, Ramos Bautista said nesting in the state follows a two-year cycle, with females returning to lay every other year, and that more nests were expected this year than last.

The sand has not been easy this year either. Por Esto reported in June that sargassum accumulations were limiting where turtles could come ashore, citing the diver Carlos Urías, who warned that artificial barriers could trap arriving animals.

Profepa has not said whether it will file a complaint in either of the August cases. Until it does, the enforcement that reaches most of this coastline is the kind Ramos Bautista described: one person standing three meters back and deciding not to reach down.

Have you come across hatchlings on a beach here, and did anyone nearby know what to do? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.