THEY'RE BACK!

If you didn't recognize this photo of a female Loggerhead coming up on the beach to lay her eggs, it's because you haven't been a reader of this blog in past years. Yes, it's the same photo that I used in a couple of blogs in past years (it really was on our beach!), but that's because it was one of the best photos of an adult female Loggerhead that we have been fortunate enough to get locally. It can be credited to a visitor from the north who was out on the beach at the right time a couple of years ago. While it's not advisable to take photos of turtles on the beach at night - it distracts them and disorients them when the are attempting to get up on the beach to lay their eggs, it must be remembered that it is illegal to interfere with them (touch or disturb them, the nest or the eggs they are laying) anytime that they are on the beach. In addition, if you see anyone doing that, please contact 911 and ask that they connect you with some agency (marine patrol, etc.) that can help deter the criminal activity.

Once again this year, we are encountering "escarpments" along our section of the beach that are sure to deter, to some degree, any sea turtles from gaining easy access to the beach in order to lay their eggs. Our local governments and the Army Corps of Engineers have yet to find the funds to "renourish" these beaches and the quantity of sea turtles that will be able to dig nests and lay eggs will be severely curtailed, in this writer's estimation. Speaking of estimations, I estimated as of the last entry in this blog as of October, 2010, that the season ending in October of that year produced only 16 hatched nests, while 20 were destroyed by wave/storm action. As you may remember, I could only "document" about 40 nests, mainly because the organization (Environmental Associates, Inc. - EAI) that was charged with locating and identifying sea turtle nests up and down our portion of the coast, only "staked-out" (encircled the new nests with stakes and bright colored plastic ribbon) approximately one out of every 24, or some such fraction of the nests, thereof. While their statistics published in the newspaper (Scripps Treasure Coast Newspaper, 11/29/10) at the end of last season indicated that they recorded an increase of sea turtle nests during that season, I would dispute their actual numbers as any reflection of the total nests laid along our stretch of beach. As had been indicated in this blog site last season, the combination of severe 6' & 7' escarpments along our beach, and the severe wave erosion along this section of beach, made for a "poor" year of nesting, as far as I could determine. We'll hope for a better year, even though we are starting out the season with escarpments stretching from the Jetty down almost a couple of miles south on the beach. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather and the eventual "renourishment" of the beach for the benefit of our sea turtles. Welcome back to the turtles and welcome back to those of you reading this blog!