|
|
Sea Turtle Facts:
Most of the marine turtles nesting on our beaches in Gulf County are loggerheads (Caretta caretta). Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) nest on St. Joseph Peninsula every other year. Visits by Leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea) to this area are rare. All sea turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The sea turtle nesting season runs from May 1- October 31 and if you are on the beach at this time, you will probably see small areas up beyond the tide line marked with wooden stakes and yellow ribbon. These stakes are protecting turtle nests.
The female turtle who laid this nest not only had to survive approximately 18 - 20 years before laying her first nest, but also had to bypass many dangers to return the beach of her own birth. With good genes, diligent conservation, and luck, she can live more than 100 years.
It takes the female about two hours to dig the nest with her rear flippers, deposit her eggs, camouflage them, and return to the water. If she encounters light, loud noise, movement, or impediments such as beach chairs, she will return to the sea and try to nest another time. A female marine turtle will lay eggs every three years and up to five nests that year.
The nest, or clutch, is found by following the tracks from the ocean. Only persons authorized by the State of Florida ("permittees") are allowed to touch the turtles, eggs or hatchlings. Down a few feet into the cool sand are a hundred or more ping-pong ball shaped eggs, which must be on land so the embryos can breathe air through their shells. The temperature of the nest sand determines the sex of the hatchlings: the warmer sand produces females, the colder sand, males. Conservationists try to leave nests where the mother has laid them so the sex ratios are determined naturally. However, sometimes a clutch has to be moved so it will not be inundated or eroded by the sea. It will take approximately two months for the eggs to hatch, at which point the baby turtles will crawl out and make their way toward the ocean and begin their life.
When the 2-inch hatchings emerge from the nest, they do so as a mass exodus, usually at night when they may be safer from predators such as gulls and large fish. They will swim approximately 40 miles to the weed line and the Gulf Stream and spend their formative years hiding in the Sargasso Sea.
Hatchlings do not need a full moon to emerge; they will crawl in the brightest direction which, under natural conditions, is the open sky over the water. However, artificial lights on buildings and roadways can distract the babies rerouting them into the path of oncoming cars or death by dehydration. Hence, many Florida beachfront communities, including here on St. Joseph Peninsula, have adopted lighting ordinances requiring lights to be turned off or shielded during turtle season.
Current estimates are that fewer than 1 out of l000 hatchlings survive to adulthood. Gulf County turtles are part of the northwest Florida family of turtles who are more threatened than the southern Florida nesting groups, perhaps due to the colder weather and the lack of a large area of nesting sites. Do your part to help ensure their survival.
What is the Turtle Patrol?
Almost every turtle nesting beach in Florida has a local Turtle Patrol program. The Turtle Patrol surveys the beach each morning from May to October to identify and mark sea turtle nests and to carefully watch them until they hatch. Turtle Patrol on St. Joseph Peninsula is sponsored by the Gulf Coast Conservation Association and is an entirely volunteer program.
Due to our very narrow beach resulting from severe erosion, GCCA Turtle Patrol volunteers walk the beach each morning to search for nests. Each volunteer is responsible for checking 2 miles of beach which takes about an hour. After the entire 6 miles has been checked, the volunteers regroup and work together to mark new nests and relocate any that are too close to the water. During hatching season, nests are checked for signs of emergence and dug up to determine how many eggs were present and how many hatched.
If you would like to be a part of this program, please fill out and return a membership form. You can also support Turtle Patrol through financial contributions, help develop and distribute educational materials, or allow use of your boardwalks for access to the beach.
Nesting on St. Joseph Peninsula
Genetic studies have shown that the loggerhead sea turtles nesting in the Florida panhandle are a separate population from those nesting in other parts of the Southeast U. S. This means that the loggerheads we have here nest nowhere else in the world, and if these turtles disappear from our beaches, they are not likely to ever return or repopulate. St. Joseph Peninsula, in Gulf County, has the highest density of nesting loggerheads in the panhandle. With an average of about 250 nests on the peninsula each year, this area receives about a third of the nesting in the panhandle.
Nests documented on the Peninsula in the past 4 years are illustrated below:
Adopt-a-Nest
There are lots of ways you can support efforts to protect this endangered species (Membership Form; Important Information for Property Owners), including the popular Adopt-A-Nest Program. By making a donation to support a nest, you will receive an information packet which includes a photo of the nest and regular updates throughout the season. And remember all donations are tax deductible.
Other Information Sources
General Books on Sea Turtles:Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean, Osha Grey Davidson
Interrupted Journey: Saving Endangered Sea Turtles. Kathryn Lasky and Christopher Knight (illustrations)
Into the Sea, Brenda Z. Guiberson and Alix Berenzy (illustrations)
On the Trail of Sea Turtles, Bernard Devaux, Bernard De Wetter, Mael Dewynter (Illustrator)
Search for the Great Turtle Mother, Jack Rudloe
Sea Turtles, Jeff Ripple
Sea Turtle Migration-Tracking and Coastal Habitat Education Program, (www.cccturtle.org)
Sea Turtles of the World. Doug Perrine (photography)
Sea Turtles: The Watcher's Guide. M. Timothy O'Keefe
The Loggerhead in the E. Gulf of Mexico, Charles LeBluff, Jr.
The Sea Turtle: So Excellent a Fishe, Archie Carr
The Windward Road, Archie Carr
Time of the Turtle, Jack Rudloe
Academic Books on Sea Turtles:Encyclopedia of Turtles, Peter C. H. Pritchard
Handbook of Turtles: The Turtles of the US, Canada, and Baja California, Archie Carr
Loggerhead Sea Turtles. Alan B. Bolton and Blair E. Witherington (eds.)
The Anatomy of Sea Turtles, Jeannette Wyneken. Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-470, US National Marine Fisheries Service
The Biology of Sea Turtles, Vols. 1 & 2, Peter L. Lutz (ed)
Children's Books on Sea Turtles:Follow The Moon, Sarah Weeks and Suzanne Duranceau (illustrations)
Sea Turtle Journey: The Story of a Loggerhead Turtle, Lorraine A. Jay and Katie Lee (illustrations)
Sea Turtles, Gail Gibbon (illustrations)
Tammy Turtle: A Tale of Saving Sea Turtles. Suzanne Tate and James Melvin (illustrations)
The Saving of Okee and Dokee Sea Turtle John Harms II and Robin Lee Makowski (illustrations)
Links to Other Sources of Information:Caribbean Conservation Corporation/Sea Turtle Survival League (www.cccturtle.org)
Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (cmba.ucsd.edu)
Florida Marine Research Institute (www.floridamarine.org)
Florida Power & Light (FPL)/Endangered Species - Sea Turtles (www.fpl.com/environment/endangered)
State of Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission - Marine Turtles (http://myfwc.com)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) (www.fws.gov)
U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (www.nmfs.noaa.gov)
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (www.noaa.gov)
|
|
|
