A baby green turtle heads to the sea from the beaches of Hamamatsu’s Minami Ward in Shizuoka Prefecture on Sept. 6. (Seiki Suda)

HAMAMATSU, Shizuoka Prefecture--Baby green sea turtles were hatched on beaches here, the first such confirmation on Japan’s main island, far to the north of the assumed northern limit of the species' spawning region.

The Sanctuary NPO, the Hamamatsu-based conservation group, said on Sept. 6 that of 69 eggs that were laid in the protective area on the beaches of this city’s Minami Ward, 54 have hatched.

“We were all stunned,” said Joji Mazuka, a leader of the group, referring to the moment baby green turtles emerged from the sand. “Something impossible has occurred.”

As group members watched, baby green turtles, which measured 8 centimeters each, reached the water after paddling with their flippers in the evening that day.

“I want to say to them, ‘Please come back,’ but I have mixed emotions if the eggs were laid here as a result of global warming,” Mazuka said.

In general, it is easy to determine the arrival of a green turtle for breeding because its footprints are markedly different from those of other turtle species.

From the footprints, the group located where the eggs were laid, but conservationists could not tell if they were those of a green turtle when they discovered them on July 1. A typhoon striking around that time made it impossible for them to determine that the footprints were a green turtle's.

The northern boundary of the green turtles’ breeding ground is believed to the beaches of Yakushima in Kagoshima Prefecture, as well as the beaches of the Ogasawara island chain to the south of Tokyo.

In 2008, eggs of a green turtle were confirmed in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, but they never hatched, according to Sanctuary NPO.

The group is involved in the conservation of sea turtles in the sea called Enshunada, which spans about 110 kilometers between Cape Omaezaki in Shizuoka Prefecture and Cape Irago in Aichi Prefecture.