Loggerhead sea turtle returns to birthplace in Oman's beach after 12 years

 A female loggerhead sea turtle has returned to its original nesting beach on Oman’s Masirah Island 12 years after it was first tagged, providing further evidence of the species' remarkable ability to return to its birthplace to breed, the Environment Authority said.

According to environmental specialists, the turtle was spotted during routine field monitoring on Al Ayjah Beach in the Wilayat of Masirah, in South Al Sharqiyah Governorate.

Ghasi bin Hamad Al Farsi, an environmental monitoring supervisor at the authority's Masirah centre, said the turtle had been fitted with an identification tag during the 2014 nesting season at the same location.

He said the sighting adds to documented records of loggerhead turtles returning to Masirah's beaches and confirms what scientists describe as "site fidelity" — the strong tendency of female turtles to return to their original nesting grounds.

The observation also indicates that the female remains reproductively active more than a decade after it was last recorded.

The sighting has been logged as part of the 2026 loggerhead nesting season and added to the Environment Authority's long-term database of tagged turtles under its Masirah Island nesting beach management programme.