OK, if you look closely, you can see some tiny hatchling tracks from two of the three Leatherback nests that we have been watching on our section of beach. These two nests apparently hatched on or about Saturday of this last weekend. That means that the hatchlings probably began coming out after 84 days of incubation for the TDC328 nest that was laid on or about 3/28/09, and about 77 days for the nest laid on 4/4/09 (TDC404). My "Turtle Dad" colleague and his grandson checked on the nests during an early Saturday morning walk on the beach and said that they found a couple of hatchlings that had either gotten stuck in seaweed on the beach, or had gotten turned over and not able to make any progress toward the ocean. Both were "saved" and were able to reach the water on their own after being given a "helping hand" to restart their trek to the sea. The "hatching season" has begun for our stretch of beach!

Your photos for the week can be found on the front page of the Sunday (6/21/09) Father's Day edition of the "St. Lucie News Tribune". It shows two of the EA Inc. researchers, scientist Ernesto Calix and senior scientist/sea turtle biologist Niki Desjardin, counting the hatched and unhatched leatherback sea turtle eggs from a recent leatherback nest hatch. It was probably one of the Leatherback nests further down the beach from "our" section of the beach, but the three Leatherback nests within our section should be about ready to hatch, as well. The one scientist, "Niki", that is shown in the photo in the newspaper is the same Niki (with the correct spelling of her name this time, however) that we spoke to and logged in our blog a while back. These two scientists are checking some of these nests for their research. There is also some very detailed sea turtle nest information and statistics in the remainder of the article (page A4) that covers 5 counties along the east coast (Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Brevard & Palm Beach). Those 5 counties account for about 58,703 sea turtle nests (about 82%) of the 71,412 sea turtle nests found on all beaches in the state of Florida to date. The statistics also reflect an earlier "guesstimate" of ours in an earlier blog where we guessed that the vast majority of nests that we would find on our stretch of beach would be Loggerheads. The article reported that the number of Loggerhead nests found in the 5 county area ( 49,553) represent about 81% of all of the nests found to date in Florida (61,457). In a similar vein, Green turtle nests for the 5 county area number 8458, or almost 92% of the 9,228 green turtle nest total for the state. The statistics for the Leatherbacks show that our 5 county area had 692 (95%) of the state total of 727. Obviously, these statistics may change during the course of the turtle nest laying season (March - October), but our guess would be that the current statistics will accurately reflect the final percentages. Our own humble statistics show 24 total nests for our section of the beach, including 21 Loggerhead nests (88%), 3 Leatherback nests (12%) and no Green nests (0%). Not exactly in line with the 5 county area stats, but it's a start! Our thanks to the "St. Lucie News Tribune" for such an excellent and detailed article about sea turtle nests on our beaches. It was very informative an perfect timing for our Turtle Dads Father's Day celebration!

Twenty-four and counting! As you can see from the chart and Google Map photo, our little stretch of beach is starting to gain new sea turtle nests almost everyday. We're still anxiously awaiting the hatching of the two Leatherback nests that should be hatching any day now. We initially used last year's average number of days for all nests, but were informed by one of the EAI employees recently that the Leatherback nests may take up to 70 days, as opposed to an average of 45-60 days for the Loggerhead nests. So much for averages, but the 55 day average should hold true for most of the Loggerhead nests. It won't be long now!

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, the beach renourishment in our area (a $ 2 million project) is finished. The renourishment this year only covered a couple of hundred yards south of the jetty, but did bring the "beach" back almost out to the 2007 renourishment levels. The chart shows the relative lattitude of the beach (X axis) as it corresponds to the dates listed on the Y axis. The photo shows the renourished beach from the perspective of the jetty boardwalk looking out to the "spur jetty". This project was not as extensive as the renourishment project in 2007, but every little bit helps when it comes to saving the beach line.

Here's the revised sea turtle nest chart and map of the nest locations. We had a few additions during the weekend.

Twelve sea turtle nests to date! The map chart included with the blog entry today shows the location of each of those nests as we recorded them. The specific coordinates and dates laid can be found on the other chart found with this entry.