Christine's Turtle Tuesdays - July 28th, 2009
It was a banner morning for loggerhead hatchlings. There were 15 in a nest very close to the water line where a mass disorientation was noted. The whole bunch was active enough to release so we watched them make their way into the surf.
At the beginning of our walk this morning, we stopped at a leatherback nest scheduled for excavation. It was my first experience digging into a slope - the other nests have been near the water line or above the sandy slope that runs along Singer Island's shore. Leatherbacks lay their eggs more deeply than the other two species of turtles found here so excavating one of their nests is always more work to begin with, but I also had to contend with sand avalanches usually timed to fall just as I finished cleaning out the sand from the previous collapse! Still, it was worth all the effort. We found a lone hatchling in the nest.
We also spotted the site of a fresh hatch and marked it for later excavation. Volunteers will open it on Friday.
And since some of you asked ... here's more on disorientations.
Mass hatchling disorientations are most often caused by bright lights shining on or too close to the beach. When it appears that more than 50 percent of a nest's hatchlings were disoriented, we report the incident to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. FWC or the county's environmental resource management folks work with the operators of the offending lights to get those properly shielded to prevent more disorientations.
According to statistics from the FWC, in 2007, more than 64,000 hatchlings became disoriented upon leaving their nests. And although many light sources can contribute to a single disorientation event, exterior condominium lights are the most common culprit.
 | One of 15 loggerhead hatchlings found this morning in a single nest.
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| As you can see, this is our high-tech turtle transportation device. We use it to carry turtles while we finish our walk and to transport them, if necessary, to the Juno Beach MarineLife Center. I played chauffeur this morning.
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 | I don't know if this is clear enough to see, but the depression just in front of the wood stake is where hatchlings emerged from this nest last night. What looks like pock marks in the sand are actually tiny turtle tracks. |
Christine's Turtle Tuesdays - July ......
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