Sea turtle nesting season officially ended on October the 31st and we now have an overview of how the nesting season went this year at least on St. George Island.
Turtle monitors from Sea Turtles at Risk said they found 114 loggerhead sea turtle nests through the summer; that’s down just a little from 122 last year.
They also found 83 false crawls which is where a female sea turtle crawls on to the beach but then returns to the Gulf without laying eggs.
The nests did face a lot of danger this summer from predators, severe weather and the BP oil spill.
An estimated 35 nests were washed over in August during Tropical Depression number 5.
Those nests weren’t destroyed but the event did result in lower numbers of hatched eggs from those nests.
Two nests were completely washed away during that storm.
16 nests on St. George Island were dug up by coyotes – and 46 nests were moved to Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s east coast to protect the hatchlings from the BP oil spill.
Even the nests that hatched on the island still suffered some impacts from humans.
3 nests were disoriented by artificial lights – that number is down from 9 last year.
More people are showing an interest in learning about sea turtles.
552 people attended the 12 “Turtle Talks” held by the Sea Turtles at Risk Group over the summer nesting season.
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