For several years now, I’ve volunteered with Turtle Time
Inc., working with a crew of other volunteers monitoring beaches in Lee County for new loggerhead
turtle nests, and hatched nests later in the season.
Turtle season kicks off April 14, and extends through
August. All along the beaches in Collier and Lee County, and throughout coastal
Florida, for that matter, as we move into summer you will find marked nests
where sea turtles have crawled out of the sea to lay clutches of as many as 60
eggs. Female loggerhead turtles lay 3-4 clutches of eggs per season. But they
don’t start laying until they are 30 years old.
The most amazing part? They swim back to the same beaches
and lay eggs within 100 yards or so from where they were hatched all those
decades ago.
Lauren and I were at day-long training with Florida Fish
& Wildlife Conservation Commission in Punta Gorda last week. This training
is required every two years. When we have an assigned area of beach, usually on Bonita
Beach in Lee County, we walk that stretch starting around 6 am. Right at dawn
before any equipment or hordes of tourists are out on the sand. We check to see
if it is a false crawl (probably didn’t make a nest and lay eggs), or whether
it is indeed a nest. We mark it with flags, call it in, and the more
experienced individuals on the Turtle Time FWC permit come to the site, verify
our findings, and then stake off the site. Latitude and longitude readings are
taken, the nest is numbered, measurements are taken for distance to the
waterline, and distance to the sand dunes and sea grasses. Photos are taken.
As the summer rolls on, we get into hatching time. And then
beach monitors are looking for late nests being laid, and for turtle nest
hatches.
I will write more, and publish photos, as we roll farther
into season.
Turtle
Time is a fascinating organization with which to be involved, is key in
Lee County to a very important conservation mission.
And MANY THANKS to the great people who have graciously taught us since we
got involved in 2015 at Turtle Time. Eve Haverfield, who heads up the
organization, and Lynne, Renee and Rae Ann, who have been patient in showing
us the ins and outs of sea turtle conservation the past two summers.
Please
know, there is nothing so rewarding as to being out on the beach when
it is barely light, and being the first people to see turtle tracks
coming out of, and returning to the Gulf of Mexico. And then
investigating and identifying new turtle nests. It is important.
More to come….
