Seventy volunteers kept watch at Torre Guaceto so 229 hatchlings went to the sea and not the road
Dick Knepper was born in 1928 and lives in Bay View, on the south side of Milwaukee. He was in his seventies when he typed up a simple weights programme for other older people, and it still runs twice a week at the community centre under the name he gave it, Dumbbells for Seniors. He is 97 and still takes the class himself. This winter he goes to Florida, so he has taught Marcelina Agbuis, who is 82, to lead it while he is away.
1 October 2026
Photo: Riserva Naturale di Torre Guaceto
Five loggerhead nests hatched on the coast between Ostuni and Casalabate this summer and 229 turtles reached the sea, the Torre Guaceto reserve said this week. More than seventy people took turns sitting with the nests to get them there.
A hatchling digs its way out of the sand at night and goes towards the brightest thing in front of it. For most of the history of the species that has been the sea, which holds the last of the light. On a developed coast it is the road, and the lamps along it, and the beach clubs behind.
Photo: Riserva Naturale di Torre Guaceto
The shifts
The watch ran from 13 August to 21 September. People took it in turns, through the night, for the weeks when the nests were due. Most of them were not staff. They were people who live along that coast and people who were there on holiday, and one of them, Marco, is nine years old.
Photo: Riserva Naturale di Torre Guaceto
Ten nests, five through
Ten nesting events were monitored in all and five of them came through, which the reserve called an exceptional result. The first nest was recorded on 30 June. The consortium that runs the reserve coordinated the season with the volunteers, and 229 is the number that went into the water.
Carry a story in five words
We run a game called Long Story Short: one real news sentence a day, and you keep the five words that carry it. Today’s is below. Do play.
How to play
One real news sentence. The job is to keep the five words that carry the story and let the rest go, then guess. Blue means the right word in the right place, orange means it is one of the five but sitting somewhere else, and grey means it is not one of them. Five tries. The result beats the process, the name or the job beats the place, and little words like a, the and of never count.
Yesterday: Every Monday and Thursday, a 97-year-old in Milwaukee still runs the weights class he wrote for pensioners, and an 82-year-old he trained takes over this winter. The five: 97-year-old still runs weights class.