Sea turtle nesting season officially ended on October the 31st and we now have an overview of how the nesting season went on St. George Island this year. Turtle monitors said they found 122 loggerhead nests through the summer; those were marked for protection and monitoring. They found an additional 106 false crawls which is where a female sea turtle will crawl on to the beach but then return to the Gulf of Mexico without laying eggs. An estimated 35 nests were washed away this year during Tropical Storm Claudette in August and during a high tide event on September the 12th. 20 nests were washed over during the same two events. But it’s believed that 86 nests managed to successfully hatch out this summer. Over 6000 hatched eggs were counted from those nests; another 3400 did not hatch for whatever reason. It’s believed that 9 of the hatching nests were disoriented by man-made lights, including lights from 18 homes and the bright skyglow from the St. George Island commercial district.
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