The green sea turtle is named not for its shell but for the greenish fat beneath it, a color that comes from its diet. Adults are among the few large animals that graze seagrass meadows, and by keeping those meadows cropped and healthy they support fish nurseries and lock carbon into the seabed. A single female may swim more than a thousand miles between the waters where she feeds and the beach where she nests, often the beach where she hatched.
The IUCN Red List classifies the green sea turtle as Endangered. Hunting of adults and eggs, entanglement in fishing gear, coastal development that lights and erodes nesting beaches, and warming sand that skews the sex ratio of hatchlings all weigh on the species. Decades of beach protection, in places such as Tortuguero in Costa Rica, have helped some populations recover.
