THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

That's all folks! It appears that, as of the beginning of October, almost all of the sea turtle nests along our section of beach have either hatched or have been destroyed by storm waves. The totals, as the chart included in this posting shows, indicate that it was a rather poor year along our stretch of beach for sea turtle nests and hatchlings. By our count, there were only 16 nests that hatched, while there were 20 nests that were destroyed by storm wave damage, and four other remaining nests that were designated as "probable nests" and have yet to hatch. Why the poor showing this year? Our unscientific guess would be that it was because of a number of factors, as listed below:

1) There was severe escarpment development (5 to 7 feet high) early in the sea turtle nesting season (March - May) along the first quarter of a mile of beach south of the jetty, making it almost impossible for turtles to get up on the beach to lay their eggs.

2) There was severe beach erosion due to several storms that passed parallel to our beach toward the end of the season. Those storms generated large waves far out to sea that eventually reached our shore and destroyed many of the nests that had not yet hatched.

3) There was a generally poor beach environment with large amounts of debris and 3 foot high packs of dead sea weed that obstructed a wide swath of beach near the jetty and severely inhibited nesting.

Also during the summer, Environmental Associates, Inc. (EAI, Inc.) apparently conducted a "research study" that was attempting to compare the number of nests laid in a section of "re-nourished beach" covering several hundred yards immediately south of the jetty with a "natural beach" section of beach about 1 mile south of the jetty. The "re-nourished beach" was composed mostly of sand that had been previously brought in from several sand bars off shore that, ironically, were created by the continual erosion of our beach caused by the unique and strong currents moving south from the shipping channel (jetty) and washing along our beach. The Army Corps of Engineers are apparently charged with maintaining that channel and repairing the damage that the shipping channel has caused to the beach immediately south of the jetty. As such, the beach just south of the jetty is considered "re-nourished beach" in contrast to the beaches further south that are considered "natural sand beaches". The problem, as this writer sees the situation, is that there were too many conflicting factors, i.e., escarpments on the "re-nourished" section of beach, while there were few, if any, escarpments on the "natural sand beach" section further to the south. Also, the fact that EAI. Inc. was only "marking" one out of every 24 nests for most of our stretch of beach, possibly led to more "human destruction" with beach-goers unaware that they were inadvertently disturbing many of the nests that were underfoot (and body). Since we had relied on EAI for the "official markings" of nests for several months until we discovered in early July that they were only marking one in 24 nests, we had some initial "confusion" as to where all of the nests might be. As such, many of our own recordings were "tentative" at best, since we tried to "catch up" after about three months of being unaware of the procedure being followed by EAI in marking nests this season. We'll be better prepared next year, but I suspect that our calculations are very close to the actual numbers since we only counted it as a nest if we could find evidence that hatchlings had come from a nest (seeing "flipper trails" or the actual hatchlings themselves).




The included map and chart show what we believe to be the "final results" for our stretch of beach for the 2010 sea turtle nesting season. It's very disappointing to see that so few nests hatched, but the combination of "Mother Nature" and yes, the rest of us "creatures", obviously took a negative toll on the sea turtle nests this season.
Best wishes to my "many" friends and "followers" of my "Turtle Dads" blog this spring and summer. Have a good fall and winter and we'll pick up our search for more sea turtle nests in the spring!

No - this isn't a photo from our section of beach along the Atlantic coast. Things have been rather slow relative to the sea turtle nests on our beach since many of the nests were destroyed by the waves of a previous hurricane that passed by our coast way, hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic. We only have about 7 nests remaining that we are quite certain will produce hatchlings. Most of the other nests have either been destroyed by the waves (approximately 9) or have already hatched (approximately 16). The stakes and ribbon of one nest that we had been keeping track of were recently pulled by the staff of EAI, Inc. - no evidence of any hatchlings (tracks or other evidence of hatching), but probably just because the "due date" for the nest to hatch (we had calculated that it would have been 60 days of incubation around 9/9/10) has passed, so they may have decided that it either wasn't going to hatch, or it was a "false" nest. It appeared that they had dug up the nest to confirm their theory.

As for the two photos embedded in this posting, our family recently had an opportunity to visit the Florida Oceanographic Society facility in Stuart, FL, to view and "pet" some small "stingrays" in their small sea water tank, and see some of the larger specimens of fish, stingrays, and sharks in their outdoor seawater "lagoon". Of special interest this time was the addition of "Turtwig", a 100 lb. green sea turtle (see photos) to the lagoon. Turtwig was donated in July to the Florida Oceanographic Society from theLoggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, FL. Turtwig arrived at LMC in August of 2009 after some special care. He had been injured by a propeller and has difficulty maneuvering because of some damage to his shell and hind flippers. He will spend the rest of his life at the Florida Oceanographic Society because of his permanent injuries, but he is being "target-trained" (as seen in the photo) to swim toward the trainer when she shows a blue circle in the water. In order to get his "treats" (carrots, lettuce, brocolli, etc.) he must swim toward and touch the "blue circle" at the end of a plastic pipe. This training will ensure that he will also get his needed medications and vitamins every day.

Storm Destroys Sea Turtle Nests

The empty sea turtle egg shells shown in one of the photos in this blog posting were found on the beach among the left-over sea weed and "garbage" that was blown up on the beach - up to the dune line. We've now lost half as many sea turtle nests on our beaches as we have found hatched. A sad commentary for the sea turtle nesting season this year, but something that is unavoidable. Mother Nature has an impact on all creatures, but sometimes she's quite destructive, as seen in another photo included in this post.

Mother Nature's fury was evidenced during a "drive-by" this week by Hurricane Earl. While the storm's winds never reached our shores, the waves created by the storm hundreds of miles out to sea eventually reached our beaches. In virtually one night, at least 6 nests that we had identified in our records were destroyed. One photo included in this posting shows that the crashing waves came up to the sea oats (dune line) - reaching virtually from the jetty south to the stretch of beach where we stop recording nests. The dune line that you see in the photo used to have anywhere from 20 to 30 yards of sandy beach between the dunes and the ocean's high tide. Now, the high tide line is up to the sea oats! We will probably find many more nests on our beach walk tomorrow that have also been destroyed, but we hold out hope that the remaining storms of the year are not so destructive of our beaches - and sea turtle nests.

LONG JOURNEY ENDS

This sea turtle's long journey (and life) has ended. He/she was found about a month ago on our stretch of beach and may have succumbed to a shark, old age, or a combination thereof. It's shell markings were severely washed out by the elements and death, but this writer's best guess is that it was a Loggerhead - probably a good bet, since they are the most common in this area. The shell seems to be more elongated than what I remember a Loggerhead's shell to usually be, but it is hard to tell without better markings on the shell. Unfortunately, this sea turtle - which may have been a female that returned after 20 or 30 years to her original beaches to lay her eggs, will no longer be a part of the several million year-old cycle of sea turtles' lives that we are privileged to observe from time to time on our beach.

This writer was away on vacation in Michigan for a vacation, so my many readers of this blog may have noticed a lapse in the coverage. I hope that you are now back in the "blog mode" with me for the duration of the turtle nesting season.

CURRENT TURTLE NEST STATUS MAP

The map included with this blog shows the approximate locations of sea turtle nests to date that we have strong suspicions are actual nests with eggs (red pins). The green pins represent the locations of nests that were documented by us as having been hatched. We documented these by either observing multiple tracks leading from the nest or actually seeing some straglers who were still in the process of traveling to the water from the nest.

Also, after seeing a report that a green sea turtle was being transferred from the Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) in Juno Beach, FL to the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart, FL, I e-mailed the LMC to adopt a sea turtle under their care. I actually adopted "hatchlings" rather than one of the named adult turtles, since I am partial to hatchlings. I also asked if I could post their link in my post, so that readers of my blog (yes- there are people who actually read my blog!) could hook up with their link and see the many interesting things that they are doing in support of sea turtles. Their link is www.marinelife.org. Why not adopt a Loggerhead today? It's a great cause!

CRIME ON THE BEACH

It really was a "crime on the beach" that was found this morning when a marked sea turtle nest was found to have been dug up by someone after pulling up the marking stakes and ribbon from the nest. This nest even had a yellow warning card advising beach goers that it is against the law to disturb these nests (see photo).

I guess we need a "Crime Watch" for the beach, as well, now that some ignorant individual, or group, has blatantly broken the law and destroyed an endangered sea turtle nest.

These egg "shells" were found a few yards down the beach near the water and appear to be all that remain of the dug-up nest. It never ceases to amaze me as to how irresponsible some people's behavior can be.

If you ever observe someone purposely destroying a sea turtle nest, or digging up the eggs from a sea turtle nest, please call 911 to report them. The only ones with authority to dig in such nests in our area are the biologists/employees of EAI, Inc.

A NON-NEST!

There were tracks leading from the ocean ............
and tracks leading to the ocean ........

but only an empty nest was dug and left by the turtle without any eggs being laid. It maay have been a late start by the female sea turtle and/or she was disturbed by early morning light, dogs on the loose on the beach (against the law), other predators or even humans. Hopefully, she will come back to this area of the beach another day and lay her eggs.

LEATHERBACK HATCHLING

This Leatherback hatchling was found on his way to the beach several days ago. He/she came from a nest that we found hatched on 7/21/10, so we subtracted the number of days that it took the average nest to incubate last year, resulting in our guestimate of when the nest was laid. We had to resort to that guesstimate, since this was one of the nests not staked out by EAI, Inc., nor initially recorded by us. We added a few days to the average because this was a Leatherback nest and they take, on the average, more days than do the Loggerhead nests to incubate. Our estimate of when that Loggerhead nest was laid is 5/23/10.

If you compare this hatchling to the Loggerhead hatchling on a previous blog post, you may be able to see the difference in size (the Leatherback hatchling is about twice the size of the Loggerhead hatchling).

With the northern fringes of Tropical Storm Bonnie hitting our beaches today, we will keep our fingers crossed that the wave action generated by the storm will not damage or destroy those nests located on our beaches.

SLOW STARTER!

Some hatchlings need to warm up their engines before they can make any forward progress! Included in this blog entry is a video of one that needed a few more seconds of "excercise" before he got down to business.

Several more hatchlings were saved today (as were two Leatherback hatchlings yesterday), as there continue to be some that don't make their exit from the nest during the night and get caught in the heat of the day or by predators such as birds, crabs, or racoons.

SCAMPER TO THE SEA

Several more hatchlings were "assisted" in their efforts to get to the ocean from their nest. It's a long haul for some of them, especially when they get a late start after the sun has risen.

THREE MORE SAVED!

Three more little guys saved this morning! If I can save 1000, one (1) may actually survive until maturity and return to our beaches! I've got about 800 to go, for my first 1000, so I will need to do this for a few more years. The hatchling that you see in the photo in this blog just hatched this morning - a little late, since the sun was already up, but not to late to help him/her find his/her way to the ocean.

Speaking of sea turtle survival, there was a great program on the National Geographic channel last week that showed the lifelong efforts of an environmentalist in Australia. He has kept track of Loggerhead nests and hatchlings (plus other types of sea turtles when they encountered them) for about 30 years. They would tag juveniles that they found in the ocean around the Australian beaches that he patroled, and "notch" the shell of the hatchlings from the nests that they had marked for study. The program described how, once the hatchlings hatch and reach the ocean, they are carried by the Pacific Ocean currents. The cycle appears to be that they travel with the easterly current in the south Pacific toward South America, then north along the west coast of South America, and finally westward toward Asia and Australia. I believe the that the program indicated that after 30 years of studying and waiting, they found one of the adult Loggerheads back on their Australian beaches! Quite a cycle, but they are very good at this "travel" since their ancestors have been doing this for over a million years! The study indicated that they believe that they found the reason for an 80% decline in the Pacific Ocean Loggerhead population - fishing nets. Once that was determined to be one of the major causes for the declining population, new laws were implemented throughout the Pacific that required fishermen to use nets that had "turtle doors" that would allow sea turtles to escape from the nets but keep in the fish. With these changes, they believe that the decline has ended and there appears to be a slight increase in the Loggerhead population in the Pacific.

Struggle To The Sea II

Each hatchling faces a major hurdle just getting from the nest to the ocean. During their travels for the next 30 years before returning to our beaches to lay their own nests, the female Loggerhead sea turtles face hungry birds, crabs, fish, sharks, and fishermen's nets and hooks. It's no wonder that some scientists estimate that only about one in 1000 survive to adulthood.

The hatchling in the attached video had a "handicapping condition". His/her bottom shell plate protruded more than normal shells, forcing its flippers too high off the sand to be effective in helping the hatchling make much progress on the sand. Some "assistance" was provided so that the hatchling could reach the water where, it was believed, the deeper bottom shell would not be a hindrance. Bon Voyage!

A HELPING HAND

It was lucky for the little guy/girl hatchling that we encountered him/her this morning, because he wasn't going anywhere fast once he crawled out of the nest. He appeared to be "handicapped" by a bottom shell that was oversized and kept him from using his flippers to advance over the sand - let alone any seaweed obstructions that he would encounter on his way to the ocean from the nest. After watching him struggle for several minutes to make virtually no progress, some assistance was administered to lift him over about 20 yards of sand and place him on some wet sand near the water. At about the same time this morning, an employee of the EAI, Inc. arrived on a four-wheeler and was flagged down to alert him to the nest that had dispersed several more hatchlings early this morning, as evidenced by the hatchlings tracks. When the EAI employee saw how little progress was being made by the hatchling, he picked him up and turned him over to determine why the hatchling was making almost no progress in the sand. He observation was that the hatchling had an extra big chest shell (I don't remember the official name for that shell plate) and that was what was impeding his progress. There may be a video later to show you this "struggle to the sea" that we observed. To expedite the hatchling's progress - and his survival, the EAI employee placed the hatchling in the ocean several steps out after the waves broke. Another one saved!

A Visual Record of the Nests

The graphic in this blog shows the nests that we have confirmed are actual sea turtle nests that have been laid and officially recorded (red pins), or have officially hatched according to our observations. The remaining "probable" nests (see previous blog) shown on a previous chart are ones that we suspect have been laid. Remember, our recent relevation by EAI, Inc. that they are only recording one out of every 24 sea turtle nests that are laid in a large section of the beach that we cover, has dramatically changed the "accuracy" of our recorded nests this year, since we didn't start keeping our own records until early July. Our technique for the remainder of the summer is to watch for nests that hatch, then record that date, and work backwards (subtract last year's average number of days of incubation for the nests) and use our best "guestimate" of when then nests were laid. It's not the most accurate, scientific method, but it's all we have to work with this year!

IT'S A START!

The chart looks rather "blah" this year because of the happenings discussed in the previous blog in this series. The "color-coded" chart shows: "possible remaining nests" in yellow/orange; "hatched nests" in green; "wave/storm destroyed" nests in blue and "documented remaining nests" in black. The additional color-coding was necessary this year, since it wasn't discovered until early July that EAI. Inc., the company employed to record sea turtle nests along our section of the beach, was only "staking-out" one out of each 24 nests that are laid by the turtles. That knowledge necessitated a change in the approach to our own record-keeping. Instead of relying only on EAI, Inc.'s stake-outs of nests, our "team" will attempt to go back to the beach and determine all possible nests that have been laid since March. Obviously, that is an extremely difficult task, since many/most of the traces of "sea-turtle nesting" (i.e., sea turtle tracks from the ocean to the nest and back to the ocean) have been erased/covered by beach-walker traffic, weather, and/or EAI, Inc.'s purposeful running over any tracks with their 4-wheelers to protect the location of the nests.



However, as you can see, we have given it the old "retirees' try" and have "marked" each suspected/possible sea turtle nest, on our section of the beach, on the chart that you see in this blog. To make our record more complete in the future, we will have to work in reverse once we find nests that have hatched and "project backward" our best guesstimate of the date that each next was laid. We'll use last years' "average # of days incubation" (55 days - including both Leatherback and Loggerhead nests) as a way to project when the nests may have been laid. It's not as good a procedure as we used last year but, under the circumstances, it's probably the best we can do this year.



You may be able to increase the size of the chart, for easier reading, if you double-click on the chart.

FIRST HATCHLINGS OF THE YEAR

Finally! The first sea turtle nest (Loggerhead nest laid on 5/12/10) hatched overnight on 7/7/10! That was 56 days of incubation - somewhere in the middle of the average of 45-60 days for Loggerhead eggs. The only evidence of the hatchlings was that there were numerous little turtle tracks (mostly) heading toward the ocean. The photo included in this blog was from last year.

As was discussed in an earlier blog this year, many of nests are not "staked-out" with stakes and yellow plastic tape this year. In fact, only about 1 out of 24 are apparently are being staked-out in one section of our beach.

After talking to one of the EAI, Inc. beach patrol members, it was discovered by this writer that EAI, Inc. is in the middle of a study to compare the number of nests laid and hatched on "renourished beach" sections of the beach, versus "natural sand" sections of the beach. "Renourished beaches" are those where the Army Corps of Engineers has pumped in sand "sludge" from offshore sandbars to replenish sand that has been eroded by wave action (because of being immediately south of the jetty), as compared to "natural sand" beaches where there has not been much human intervention regarding a lesser amount of erosion of sand in those areas.

I'm not a biologist, but it would seem to me that the "research model" has several major flaws or problems associated with it as I understand the procedure. First, if you are comparing those two differing beach areas (one as the "control"), it would seem to me that you would want to have a good representative sample of both types of beach. The small section of "renourished beach" that EAI, Inc. has selected includes the area immediately south of the jetty ("replenished sand beach) where severe "escarpments" have virtually closed off the beach to any turtle access for many months. That's opposed to the other section of beach ("natural sand") that is located much further south of the jetty and had only mild escarpments, if any, for many of those months. It seems to this writer that a comparison of numbers of nests laid in each of those two sections will be flawed, since there are several major factors that are interfering with any sea turtles attempting to nest in the "renourished beach" area. It doesn't seem as though this "study" will produce valid results.

In addition, it seems self-defeating to the initial purpose of "staking-out" all sea turtle nests for identification and protection to arbitrarily decide to mark only 1 out of every 24 sea turtle nests in the remaining beach areas (those outside of the study parameters) in the section of beach that we have monitored for several years. Those "unmarked/unstaked" nests will not have any protection from beachgoers both before and during hatching, thereby making it an even longer shot that this year's hatchlings will overcome the already long odds that they have for reaching adulthood. This blogger doesn't understand the logic for those parts of the study.

RECALCULATING! It's time to revise the game plan this year, since we have just discovered that EAI, Inc. is only marking 1 out of 24 sea turtle nests that they find on our stretch of beach this season! What? Yes - a reliable source has indicated to us that EAI is apparently doing their own research relative to sea turtle nesting on "native sands" vs. "replenished sands" on several beaches. Since the beach area that we "patrol" has had several "sand replenishments" over the last 10 years, we are apparently part of the project. I'm still not sure of their research methodology", but I plan to give EAI a call, sometime in the near future, to help clarify what is happening relative to their research.

In the meantime, it's back to square one for us, since we will need to attempt to find all of the "nesting tracks" that have occurred on our stretch of beach over the past several months. Unfortunately, it is almost an impossible task, since many of the tracks and possible nests have been obscured by weather, EAI's own buggy tracks where they attempt to cover up the sea turtle tracks, and the factor of time that has lapsed since the tracks and nests were made. It is discouraging to find out about their "research plan" at this late date, but we have nobody to blame but ourselves, since we had serious concerns about why we were not finding more EAI-marked nests way back in April. We'll just have to do our best on our own to make up for lost time! Our apologies to our "many" blog followers. We'll try to make it up to the three of you - as soon as possible!

A TURTLE PUZZLE

Something's wrong! We have only found 4 nests total - one Leatherback and three Loggerhead turtle nests on our stretch of beach as of the end of June this year in comparison to about 36 nests that were located and staked out by EAI by this time last year! Don't know what the explanation is. It appears that EAI is still marking all of the nests that they find, but we will need to check on that assumption.

WHAT'S THE STORY?

It's the middle of May already and we only have one Loggerhead Sea Turtle nest to show for it - at least on the stretch of beach that we frequently walk in the morning. The photo shows one from a past year. The small number this year is becoming a concern, since we may have only one Leatherback Turtle nest to date, as well, on that same stretch (possibly laid back on April 9). While this may not be a representative sample of all of the Hutchinson Island beaches covered by the Environmental Associates, Inc. biologists, it is several fewer nests to date than the number we had by this time last year. By May 17, 2009, we had recorded three Leatherback nests and 3 Loggerhead nests on this section of beach. We may not yet have enough to see a "pattern" for the year, but with the steep beach "escarpments" caused by February and March waves, and the large oil spills in the Gulf possibly reaching our eastern Florida coast in the near future, sea turtles may be in for a difficult egg-nesting season. We were fortunate to flag down an EAI employee this morning to ask her our question of whether this was typical of the rest of the beaches that they patrolled. She indicated that there were a number of nests south of where we walk the beach, but another comment that caught our attention was that she indicated that they may not officially mark all of the Leatherback nests because those turtles lay their eggs in nests dug very deep in the sand. You may remember that I was only able to find one stake designating a Leatherback nest - not the typical triangular 3 posts with yellow tape wrapped between those stakes. We won't jump to any conclusions - yet, but will hope that the sea turtle-nesting activity increases significantly in the months to come.

START LOOKING!

It's time to start looking - for sea turtle nests along our coast. I haven't found any in our section of the beach, yet, but I noticed that we had recorded one as early as March 28 last year, so.... it's time to start our walks along the beach and take our GPS with us to record the locations. We will follow much the same procedure as last year, and only record in our log those nests officially located and "staked-off" by the employees of the EAI (Environmental Associates, Inc.). EAI contracted with the county last year to "monitor turtle nests on Hutchinson Island from Normandy Beach in St. Lucie County south to the St. Lucie Inlet and from the Fort Pierce Inlet south to the Ocean Village condominiums in the South Beach area of Fort Pierce", according to a June 21, 2009 article in the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. I'm guessing (and hoping) that they will be hired again this year, since they did a great job last year. According to their stats as of June 21, 2009, our sections of the beach (noted above) counted 739 Loggerhead nests, 304 Leatherback nests, and only 2 Green sea turtle nests. As of September 25, 2009 our stats for a smaller stretch of beach showed that 38 Loggerhead nests had hatched, and 3 Leatherback nests had survived to hatch (see photos from last year's blog entries). While we had recorded that 51 nests had been laid, only 41 survived wave and/or storm damages to complete their cycle and hatch.

Check in with this blog as the spring and summer progresses and new sea turtle nests are laid. We'll try to keep you posted with new photos, videos and naratives of the nesting season, just as we did last year on this site.