Mexican scientists fear that loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) crossing the Pacific Ocean between the coasts of Asia and the Americas could be suffering the effects of the Japanese nuclear disaster. “It is possible that young and adult specimens have been exposed to problematic levels of nuclear radioactivity. We don’t know how extensive the turtles’ contact with radioactivity has been, Hoyt Peckham of the Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias (Sea Turtle Conservation Network of the Californias) told Tierramérica.

The accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant following the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami took place 100 kilometers north of the beaches where loggerhead sea turtles nest.

Since 1996, experts from Mexico, the United States and Japan have been monitoring the loggerhead sea turtle, an endangered species that migrates at the end of every year from Japan to the coasts of the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California Sur, a journey that takes around 365 days.