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.

The party's over - at least for now! The beach renourishment project that was underway on our stretch of beach south of the jetty has now been completed. That was quick! However, unlike other years when they have done a "full" beach renourishment that covered approximately one mile south of the jetty (seen in the photo), they only did a few hundred yards south of the jetty this year. That was the most critical area to renourish, however, since the extent of the erosion was almost up to the jetty park boardwalk and had started to destroy the sea grass that was planted and growing near that boardwalk. The renourishment crew did level out the beach for about 1 mile south from the jetty, so it should make it easier for any sea turtles to climb up on the beach now and lay their eggs.

The photos show the area where an attached chart references coordinates that were taken "before" and "after" the current renourishment. It's only a few "degrees" of longitude on the chart, but it makes a world of difference in the real world!

Good news! We discovered that two new nests had been laid in the interim since our last visit to this stretch of beach. Both were Loggerhead nests ("CC"). A highlight of the beachwalk was that we got to meet Nicki (not sure of the spelling), an employee of the EAI group that we had previously indicated was the company that was hired to keep official track of all of the turtle nests on a number of beaches in our county. She came over on her 4-wheel beach vehicle to where we were recording the points of latitude and longitude of one of the new nests and started a conversation with us. I think that she was just making sure that we were not disturbing the nest in any way and wanted to know what we were doing. We explained that we never disturbed the nests, but were just recording the coordinates for our record sheet/chart - as we had done for the last couple of years. We then asked her about the two Leatherback nests that were near our location and appeared to be in danger of being washed away by the waves. Nicki indicated that they normally do not "transplant" the eggs of endangered nests, letting them fend for themselves with the weather. She said that she had already seen several Leatherback nests be washed away further south on the beach (beyond the stretch of beach that we cover). So, it appears that we may see the two nests in question be washed away in the near future if we have any strong storms and waves in the next couple of weeks. When we told her that we were projecting that the nests were due to hatch in the next week (refer to our chart in previous blog entries), she said that the 55 day average that we had from last year's chart would probably not apply to the Leatherback nests, since they may take anywhere up to 70 days to hatch. So much for our "average # of days incubation" from last year - but it does make sense, since the Leatherbacks are a much larger turtle with larger eggs to incubate. Hope that they hurry this year!