Sarah Hirsch, Director of Research at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, joins FOX Weather to discuss how hurricanes can affect the nesting sites of sea turtles and how these destructive storms can influence their survival rates.
Several sea turtle nests were lost along Florida’s Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Bertha battered the shoreline with rough surf and storm surge.
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Several communities, including Destin and Panacea, reported losing nearly a dozen sea turtle nests after the storm eroded beaches and flooded nesting areas.
According to the Destin-Fort Walton Beach Sea Turtle Patrol’s Facebook page, only four of the organization’s 22 nests survived the storm.
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“We use the term survived lightly because they all still experienced high amounts of wash over and inundation,” the organization wrote in a Facebook post.
The Destin-Fort Walton Beach Sea Turtle Patrol said it hopes to relocate the nests and reevaluate them using GPS coordinates and beach measurements that were recorded before the storm.
Many sea turtle nest were flooded as Tropical Storm Bertha battered Florida’s shoreline.
(Destin-Fort Walton Beach Sea Turtle Patrol)
Meanwhile, the Alligator Point Sea Turtle Patrol in Panacea said the storm’s impacts were devastating, with all of its nests either destroyed by storm surge or completely washed away.
“All of our nests were either inundated with storm surge or completely washed out and we’re heartbroken,” the post reads. “While sea turtle nests can survive being washed over, once water inundates the nest and fills the nest chamber, the eggs suffocate and are ruined.”
Destin-Fort Walton Beach Sea Turtle Patrol said only four of the organization’s 22 nests survived the storm.
(Destin-Fort Walton Beach Sea Turtle Patrol / FOX Weather)
The sea turtle patrol said all seven of its nests were washed over during the storm.
According to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center, sea turtle nesting season in Florida runs from March through October, when turtles nest along more than 1,300 miles of sandy beaches.
Sea turtle nesting season in Florida runs from March through October.
(Alligator Point Sea Turtle Patrol )
Each year, tens of thousands of female sea turtles come ashore on Florida’s beaches to dig nests and lay eggs that will hatch into the next generation.
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A sea turtle typically lays between 80 and 120 eggs in a single nest, with an average clutch size of about 110 eggs. The eggs generally hatch between August and October.
