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Tag: Anna Maria Island sea turtle hatchlings

Despite tropical storm, Turtle Watch reports successful year

Despite tropical storm, Turtle Watch reports successful year

Written by Leslie Lake on . Posted in Outdoors, Sea turtles.

ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Despite the loss of 200 loggerhead sea turtle nests due to flooding caused by Debby, which passed by Anna Maria Island as a tropical storm on Aug. 4-5, it has been a successful nesting year so far with numbers surpassing those of 2023, and, in some cases, record high numbers.

“It’s been a busy week with a lot of nest excavations – where we count the eggs in the nest to see how well the nest did after it hatched or is overdue,” Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring Executive Director Kristen Mazzarella wrote in an Aug. 30 email. “We’ve had a few hatches this week and we excavate hatched nests three days after the hatch is observed – to allow all the hatchlings to emerge from the nest on their own. However, due to the Tropical Storm Debby, most of our excavations continue to be 70-day (overdue nest) excavations.”

Mazzarella wrote that 135 nests are still incubating on Island beaches.

With a total nest count of 685, there were 200 complete washouts of nests this year, compared to 82 washouts in 2023, when 404 nests were produced.

A new loggerhead nest was found on the Island last week, and volunteers continue to look for new nests and false crawls as well as checking the remaining nests until they hatch and are excavated.

LIGHTING IMPROVEMENTS

Florida Power & Light (FPL) has started installing shields on several streetlights along Gulf Drive in Bradenton Beach. The streetlights could be seen from the beach, and may have led to the death of an adult female sea turtle that nested nearby, wandered into the road and was struck by a car in June.

“These shields will direct the light onto the road and make the lights less visible from the beach, creating a more turtle-friendly environment and helping save sea turtle hatchlings,” Mazzarella wrote. “We thank FPL, City of Bradenton Beach, Manatee County and FWC for their help in making this possible.”

Turtle Watch completes post-storm assessment

Turtle Watch completes post-storm assessment

Written by Leslie Lake on . Posted in Outdoors, Sea turtles.

ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring has completed a post-storm assessment of the turtle nests remaining on the beach after what was then Tropical Storm Debby passed by, and they are still hopeful for a near-record season.

The final tally was 479 nests still incubating on the beach at the time of the storm. Of the total 683 nests that were laid, 202 had already hatched. Turtle Watch volunteers documented 182 nests washed out, and 68 nests that are possibly still viable were restaked, according to Turtle Watch Executive Director Kristen Mazzarella in an Aug. 17 email.

“Prior to the storm, we secured the nest stakes and made sure that all nests were marked with a special GPS that we received funding for from an anonymous donor,” Mazzarella wrote. “The GPS documented the location of the nest with high accuracy which makes it very easy to accurately refind and repost nests that lost their stakes in the storm. After the storm passed, we picked up approximately 1,000 nest stakes that were pulled out from the heavy surf.”

Nest inventories are conducted three days after a hatch. Turtle Watch volunteers count the eggs inside the nest to determine the hatch success.

“Having missed two days of patrol, on 8/7 we had 27 inventories to complete – 19 were completed and eight were unable to be found,” Mazzarella wrote. “We used the new GPS’s to locate nests and determine which ones were washouts and which ones could be reposted.”

In the past week, Turtle Watch documented one new nest and three false crawls, along with 31 nest hatches.

“We are hopeful that we will still have a near record season, with 255 nests still incubating on the beach, combined with the 202 nests that have already hatched, we will have more nests than last year (2023 had 404 nests)” she wrote. “However, to make this a successful season, we will need the help of the public and visitors to ensure that hatchlings make it safely into the Gulf.”