The first successful nesting of sea turtles for 70 years in Bermuda has taken place over the last few days with 91 hatchlings recently released into the ocean by a small army of overjoyed volunteers and Aquarium staff.

According to Bermuda Turtle Project (BTP) co-ordinator Jennifer Gray, the 150 eggs discovered at Well Bay on Cooper?s Island in June by local photographer James Cooper and his sister Jennifer Constable belonged to a loggerhead sea turtle ? only the second recorded nesting of this species on the Island.

Soon after the nest?s discovery, Aquarium staff put up a protective fence around the site to protect the new arrivals from predators and started a four-hourly vigil awaiting the first hatching.

The original intention had been to allow the eggs to hatch in the sand ? but the forecast approach of Hurricane Harvey earlier this month and the expected storm surge forced Aquarium staff to excavate the nest and incubate the eggs in a large styrofoam cooler in Ms Gray?s laundry room.

And after what seemed like an eternity, the first eggs began hatching and 87 baby loggerhead turtles were released last week. The final four which hatched were subsequently released early yesterday morning. ?I?d really like to pay tribute to the people who volunteered to go down to the beach at night to watch the nest in four hour shifts,? said Ms Gray.

?Their help was tremendous and much appreciated. Ninety-one hatchlings out of 150 eggs is an extremely high success rate and there is the distinct possibility that there are other loggerhead nests out there which have not yet been discovered. But while Bermuda currently has a very healthy population of green turtles, loggerheads are not known to live here at all ? so the nest?s discovery was new and special.?

Sea turtles return to the beaches where they were born to lay their eggs.

The BTP was established in 1968 and involves an ongoing study of green turtles which visit Bermuda from elsewhere.

While green turtles ? which are the loggerheads? cousins ? are known to have nested prodigiously on local beaches throughout the 1600s, there has been no recorded nesting since the early 1930s.

Between 1968 and 1973, green turtle eggs were flown to Bermuda from Surinam and Costa Rica and buried in Bermuda?s beaches in the hope those turtles would return to produce their own offspring. This has proven unsuccessful.

Ms Gray is encouraging members of the public who come across what they believe to be turtle tracks on beaches to contact her at the Aquarium.