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!
