Sea turtles lay record number of nests in Sarasota

SARASOTA, FL – Despite the red tide of marine life in recent months, the Mote Marine Laboratory reported that sea turtles were building a record number of Longboat Key nests in Venice during the 2018 nesting season.

A total of 3,151 nests – 3,142 loggerhead turtles and nine green sea turtles – were documented this year by the Mote Sea Turtle Research and Conservation Program, which patrols the 35 miles of beaches each day from the nesting season, from May 1st to October 1st. . 31.

Scientists at the Mote Marine Laboratory have been monitoring this range of nesting beaches for 37 years.

"This year's total is the third highest since the beginning of our program about 37 years ago," said Mote Senior Biologist Melissa Bernhard, noting that the two highest totals for the Mote region have recorded in 2016 (4,588 nests) and in 2017 (4,503 nests). "Over the decades, we have learned a lot about sea turtle nesting behavior, individually and at the population level, about the impacts of human activity and animal predators on turtle population trends. sea, etc. "

Marine turtles have been around for 110 million years, but they are now threatened by encroachment and habitat degradation, pollution, bycatch in commercial fishing areas and collisions. with boats.

In 1979, under a cooperation agreement between the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida launched its program of study on the nesting beach in the state, aimed at monitoring the nesting sea turtles along the 825 miles of beaches.

The Mote Sea Turtle Research and Conservation Program is part of the conservation organizations that provide its data to the state-wide cooperative effort to monitor sea turtle nesting. .

Organizations track the number of nests and fake crawlings in sea turtles.

* A false analysis occurs when a sea turtle nests to nest but returns to sea without leaving its nest, "Bernhard said.

On July 19th, Mote scientists equipped a casa Key with the nesting green turtle nicknamed "Gigi". More and more green turtles nest along the beaches of southwestern Florida in recent years, which is an opportunity to tag nesting females and develop the small data set for this species in the past few years. the Gulf of Mexico.

"Gigi is one of the few green sea turtles to nest at Casey Key in 2018, and she will tell us more about the number of green turtle nests, where they go when they finish nesting and what routes they use to go there, "said Kristen Mazzarella, a senior biologist at Mote.

In mid-October, the Gigi Trail, combined with Mote's Turtle Patrol data, indicated that she had nestled six times this summer and that, on October 9, she had started to leave the area to go to its place of food. On October 28, she crossed the northwest coast of Cuba to Cancun, Mexico. Mote's scientists are eager to see where she will go for food in the next few years.

In 2018, Mote scientists also tagged six loggerhead sea turtles by satellite that went aground and received hospital care but would not otherwise have landed.

This year, Mote scientists continued to document the challenges faced by sea turtle hatchlings, including disorientation from artificial light visible from the beach in some areas. Green turtles and green turtles emerge at night and normally use a subdued, natural light to find the sea. Disoriented newborns can crawl into pools, roads or other dangerous situations and exhaust the energy they use. Mote scientists have also continued to document some of the impacts of predators – mainly raccoons, armadillos, and coyotes – that damage or destroy nests.

The 2018 nesting season coincided with the widespread proliferation of the Florida Red Tide, which began in the fall of 2017 and has been going on for a year. According to FWC estimates, between November 2017 and October 24, 2018, the proliferation of red tides killed or caused the stranding of 531 turtles along southwestern Florida – 116 in Sarasota County alone.

Mote's strandings survey program, dealing with dead and distressed sea turtles and marine mammals in Sarasota and Manatee Counties, indicated that the spread was largely affecting juvenile sea turtles. and sub-adults of the region, as well as some adult males but adult females breeding. Newborn hatchlings did not show a similar increase in mortality.

Sea turtles are exposed to the toxins of the red tide by eating contaminated prey, but adult female breeding birds usually do not feed and their newborns feed only after the "swimming frenzy" that propels them off the coast. When they begin to feed, newborns are usually well beyond the coastal areas where the red tide continues to bloom.

This summer, seven Mote staff members, 16 trainees and most of the 275 to 300 volunteers from the Mote Marine Turtle Patrol faced the respiratory irritation caused by the red tide on local beaches to lead to their daily mission of nest tracking and data collection. In addition to its already herculean task, the Sea Turtle Patrol has helped the strandings investigation program by becoming one of the first people to report stranded turtles and dolphins, often helping them recover and recover. find out. Decades of data from Mote and other state entities are essential to understanding the status of sea turtles in the face of many threats.

"It was heartbreaking to be on the beach every day and see the effects of the red tide on wildlife, but most of our volunteers were able to continue to monitor the beaches and help us collect valuable data for our conservation efforts for our local sea turtles, "said Bernhard Bernhard. I said. "We really could not have done it without them!"

Pictures via Mote

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