One of the main attractions that tourists travel to see on the island of Zante is the massing of endangered loggerhead turtles.  The shy turtles literally swarm over certain beach areas of the island and nest during the summer and spring months laying their eggs.

Of course, a main attraction is arriving in time to see the turtles hatch and make their way out to the waters of the island.  Due to the fact that the turtles are endangered, the Greek government has placed a high importance on protecting the turtles reminding tourists to view, but not disturb the turtles.

Turtles come to the Laganas beach in Zante during April and mate until the end of June.  It takes about 60 days after this time period of the eggs to hatch which corresponds with the peak tourist season making it somewhat easy to plan a holiday around the turtle viewing periods.  The beach of Sekania in particular experiences a large amount of nesting with about 600 nests laid every year although it is off limits to tourists to protect the turtles.  Therefore, you should not expect to visit the main area at any point during a holiday including via boat.

Those who want to view the turtles are reminded that since the turtles are extremely shy the presence of humans often disturbs their breeding habitat which is leading to their extinction.

With this in mind, while there are several firms that offer turtle tours, they are not environmentally sustainable and should be avoided in the best interest of the turtle.  However, there are some travel agencies on the island that offer turtle tours that include a pirate-turtle production in the evening and a tour of their breeding locations under the close supervision of a turtle protection society volunteer.

The main nesting beach is found on the far south side of the island inside of the marine excursion zone on Gerakas beach.  The area offers a large sandy beach to the turtles protected by the vassilikos peninsula.  Although some parts of the beach are restricted and tourists are not permitted to walk through due to the breeding activity, from other areas on the beach or from the steep hilly trails that surround the area you can view the turtles quite well.  Additionally, there is a car park but during the main tourist peak periods it can fill up quickly.

In order to preserve the presence of Zante turtles on the island there are a few recommendations for tourists.  First of all, holiday goers are asked to respect the signs posted around Zante regarding the turtle’s health and to only sit in areas of the beaches that volunteers have denoted.

Children are asked not to play with canopies over top of nests and tourists in general are asked not to litter at all while on the beach and take special care of empty water bottles which turtle hatchlings can become entrapped in.