Winnie, a female loggerhead sea turtle, came in tenth place in a field of 12 turtles in the Sea Turtle Conservancy’s Tour de Turtles Race that began on Aug. 1. She traveled 458 miles in the Gulf of Mexico since she was satellite-tagged and released after nesting on Coquina Beach on June 23 and 307 miles since the race began. The Tour de Turtles Race ended on Oct. 31.
Winnie swam to raise awareness about the threat of light pollution and how lighting near shore can negatively impact nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings.
Her participation in the 2025 Tour de Turtles was sponsored by Hurricane Hanks and Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring.
BRADENTON BEACH – The official start to sea turtle nesting season kicked off at Coquina Beach on May 1.
Named Suzi Fox Day, in tribute to the late executive director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, Turtle Watch volunteers handed out educational materials to raise awareness of turtle-friendly actions.
“This is the kickoff for the season, it’s a celebration for the volunteers, it’s a celebration of Suzi Fox and her legacy of educating people and also to try to get information out to people,” Turtle Watch Executive Director Kristin Mazzarella said. “We’re trying to educate people and we’re also trying to get property managers here to come and pick up additional outreach materials, so they have them to give out to their visitors.”
Turtle Watch volunteers educate attendees about sea turtles at Suzi Fox Day on May 1 at Coquina Beach. – Leslie Lake | Sun
Handouts included brochures outlining turtle safety tips and PAR 20 light bulbs.
“They’re amber LED light bulbs so that we can get lights out on the beach,” Mazzarella said. “It’s really important this year because the lighting is going to be worse with the dunes gone (following last year’s hurricane flooding).”
Some tips included the following:
Make it Dark – Turn off outside lights and close blinds to keep the Island and beach dark. If you need lights, there are options for wildlife-friendly lighting available at the FWC website: https://myfwc.com/wildlifeh…/wildlife/sea-turtle/lighting/
Make it Flat – Fill in holes and knock down sandcastles to make it easier for turtles to navigate the beach.
Make it Clean – If you take it to the beach, take it with you when you leave. Do not leave items on the beach overnight, including beach chairs, umbrellas and beach toys.
A nesting sea turtle is scheduled to be released on Monday, June 23 at 8 a.m. at Coquina Beach. The exact location will be announced on the Turtle Watch Facebook page that morning.
ANNA MARIA ISLAND – With the loss of sand dunes from Hurricanes Helene and Milton last year, Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring Executive Director Kristen Mazzarella is concerned about a possible increase in sea turtle disorientation in this year’s upcoming season.
“Without dunes as a barrier, hatchling and adult sea turtles that head towards artificial light may find their way into the road,” Mazzarella wrote in a March 25 email to The Sun. “This is definitely a concern and we are in contact with FWC (the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission), FPL (Florida Power and Light) and the municipalities on AMI to let them know about this concern such that lighting issues may be addressed prior to the start of sea turtle nesting season on May 1st.”
In addition to serving as a shield from artificial lights, Mazzarella wrote that the dunes provide a dark background that is a critical cue for sea turtles.
“They go away from dark shadows and towards bright horizons. Sea turtles need the dark background of dunes and vegetation to contrast with the light of the night sky over the water, so they don’t get confused about which direction to go to head to the Gulf,” she wrote. “If the background is as bright as or brighter than the night sky over the water, they will not know which direction to go and will either travel in circles or head towards the brightest light, which is often the artificial light.”
In advance of the official start of nesting season on May 1, Turtle Watch volunteers will begin patrols on Tuesday, April 15 to look for any new nests.
“We have not seen any turtle activity yet,” Mazzarella wrote. “On AMI, we generally get nesting loggerhead and green turtles which do not usually start nesting until late April or May. Leatherbacks have started nesting already in Florida but we have never had a leatherback nest on AMI… yet.”
She also said that there have been no sightings of nesting shorebirds on Anna Maria Island so far this year.
“Not yet, but we are always watching,” she wrote.
Mazzarella offered the following tips for anyone who may see a sea turtle nest or a turtle in distress.
Please call AMITW at 941-301-8434 as soon as possible if you see a nesting turtle or turtle nest prior to April 15. Once patrols begin, volunteer turtle patrols will survey the entire island every morning and will locate all the turtle crawls and mark the ones that are nests with protective stakes and flagging tape.
Remember that sea turtles are protected by the Endangered Species Act. If you see a sick, injured or dead sea turtle on the beach or in the water, please also call AMITW or FWC. AMITW’s stranding team is standing by to help rescue sick and injured sea turtles and collect important information on dead sea turtles.
If the turtle is painted with an X, that means that someone from our team has already attended to the turtle and it will be disposed of by the local authorities.
HOLMES BEACH – Turtle Watchers gathered Saturday to assess accomplishments and discuss goals at their annual potluck luncheon at CrossPointe Fellowship.
Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch Director Suzi Fox recognized different groups of volunteers, such as the newbies, those in their first year of walking the beaches during turtle nesting season. She also recognized the territory coordinators who help walkers as they look for new turtle nests and make sure they are safe until the eggs hatch. She also talked about working together.
“I know you want to have the chance to work within your sections and some sections are busier than others,” she said. “But I want you to work together entirely as a team; what happens in your section is what happened to the team.”
Fox said she had 88 volunteers qualified to walk the beaches, and they attended to 934 emergencies in nests and while the hatchlings were heading for the Gulf. She drew applause when she said they had 25,263 hatchlings make it to the sea.
Fox said the volunteers spent 400 hours distributing door-to-door handouts to resorts, businesses and Realtors at no cost to them. They spent 3,712 public outreach community hours.
Turtle Watch will work with Manatee County to replace all the metal signs in the dunes at Cortez and Coquina beaches with signs designed by students at Anna Maria Elementary School.
Finally, she said if the county decides it needs a beach renourishment following this year’s active storm season, Turtle Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide input to protect turtle and shorebird nests during those operations.
HOLMES BEACH — Revelers may have left a lot of trash on Island beaches following the July 4 holiday, but it’s disappearing thanks to a few dedicated volunteers.
About two dozen people came out the morning of July 5 to help rid the beach of trash and other debris left after the long holiday weekend.
The clean-up, organized by the Code Enforcement Department, kicked off with volunteers from Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring taking to the beach with trash bags to clean up during their early morning patrols. Code Enforcement Officers James Thomas and Nate Brown set up a supply station near the 52nd Street beach access where volunteers could pick up cold drinks, trash bags, volunteer T-shirts and other supplies.
Give-away items and supplies for the event were provided by the city, Waste Pro and Keep Manatee Beautiful.
Volunteers picked up trash and debris for several hours, which was collected by Waste Pro and Holmes Beach Public Works employees. Among the volunteers who took to the sand were a group of cross-country runners from St. Stephen’s Episcopal School.
Cross-Country Coach Wendy Kovich, a Holmes Beach resident, said she’d like to create a group of students to regularly help clean up the beaches and volunteer with AMITW.
Holmes Beach Commissioner Marvin Grossman, who helped collect trash along with residents Kim and Theresa Rash, said he was happy with the camaraderie among volunteers.
“It was fun,” he said of the clean-up.
Police Chief Bill Tokajer said the movement to help keep the beaches and beach ends clean was a combined effort by city public works employees, Waste Pro and city law enforcement.
Waste Pro agreed to make additional trash pick-ups at beach ends, also providing larger or additional collection containers over the holiday weekend. Additionally, public works employees provided additional debris collections at beach ends.
Tokajer said he felt beachgoers were “very responsible” in removing their trash and other debris when leaving the beach.
“This is the cleanest day after a holiday on the beach I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Everybody’s a winner here.”
HOLMES BEACH – Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring is starting earlier and doing things differently this sea turtle season to safeguard sea turtles better than ever.
Volunteer beach walkers already are scanning the Island’s beaches at dawn each morning for signs of nesting; Turtle Watch Director Suzi Fox thinks that unseasonably warm weather may prompt nesting before the May 1 season starts.
Suzi Fox
Turtle watchers will do several things differently this year to better focus on keeping track of the increasing number of threatened loggerhead turtles and occasional endangered green turtles that nest and hatch on the Island for six months each year, she said.
Sea turtles will no longer pose for photo ops beginning this year, Fox told volunteers at the 2017 Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch Spring Training at CrossPointe Fellowship last Tuesday.
Hatchlings discovered during excavations that are still in a nest after all the others have hatched will be placed in a bucket on wet sand with a towel over the bucket, and not displayed or handled any more than necessary, she said.
Volunteers will no longer verify nests by digging into them the morning after they are laid to find eggs, Fox said. Instead, they must use signs in the sand to determine whether a nest is real or a false crawl – an abandoned nesting attempt usually caused by obstacles on the beach or lights, she said, reviewing tips on spotting and identifying turtle tracks of the two species that nest on the Island.
Volunteers also will not tag furniture and other items illegally left on the beach overnight or taking photos of illegal lights; that is a job for the code enforcement officers in each of the Island’s three cities, Fox said. Turtle Watch volunteers also will not approach people who may be endangering turtle nests; they should call police instead, she said.
Volunteers will no longer be filling in holes in the sand, which can entrap turtles, or watching nests at night near their hatching due dates, which tends to attract people from the beach who sometimes disorient the nests, causing hatchlings to die, Fox said.
Red flashlights formerly used by volunteers will no longer be allowed on the beach, as red film does not convert the light frequencies to those turtles cannot see.
Turtle watchers will mark nests with three instead of four yellow stakes this year, and they will be higher and have two rows of tape marking the nests to increase visibility, she said.
Fox thanked Manatee County’s beach raker, Mark Taylor, who already is at work grading the sand at the water’s edge to make it easier for turtles to climb onto the beach. With his tractor, he is also fluffing up the sand to make it easier for turtles to dig, countering the last beach renourishment that packed the sand more densely than normal.
HOLMES BEACH – It’s officially bird nesting season – the first snowy plovers, a threatened species in Florida, have made a nest on Anna Maria Island.
The nest is also the first snowy plover nest on the west coast of Florida this year, according to Suzi Fox, director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring.
Three pairs of mottled ducks are visiting Bradenton Beach, two more pairs than in previous years, Fox said. The ducks are not expected to nest on the beach.
Bird Tips
During bird nesting season, March through August, please follow these tips:
Never touch a shorebird chick, even if it’s wandering outside a staked nesting area.
Teach kids not to chase birds. Bird parents may abandon nests if they’re disturbed.
Don’t feed birds. It encourages them to fly at people aggressively and is not good for their health.
Anna Camp, a volunteer with Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, stakes out the first shorebird nest of the 2017 season.
If birds are screeching and flying at you, you’re too close.
Avoid posted bird nesting areas and use designated walkways to the beach.
Keep pets away from bird nesting areas.
Keep the beach clean. Food scraps attract predators such as raccoons and crows to the beach, and litter can entangle birds and other wildlife.
If you see people disturbing nesting birds, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Alert hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922).
