Turtle Patrol - Morning After a Nest Hatch

Clean, Flat, Dark is our turtle mantra during nesting season to minimize the impact of humans on nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings.  I just had to share our morning patrol and these pictures with you, so that everyone can see why clean, flat, dark is so important.

First Clean and Flat; this picture was taken on  our 24th July  morning patrol  on St Pete Beach.  It is a near text-book crawl, only there is no nest - as it seems she ran into this sandcastle. ie a wasted journey we call a 'false crawl.'  It takes an adult female turtle so much energy to haul 250-350 pounds of body weight up the beach, so false crawls are a problem depleting her energy. Noise, light, movement, obstructions (including beach chairs &  holes in which she can fall and not get out as she doesn't go backwards on land), and possibly even the 'wrong type of sand' all contribute to false crawls.

Here she crawled up overnight and did a full spiral before giving up and going back into the sea.

Dark: pictures below taken on 25th July on Madeira Beach just outside our condo.  The nest hatched overnight 24th/25th with a typical 'drop' in the sand.  Unfortunately, and despite turtle lighting just behind the nest, bright lights from two neighboring condos disoriented the hatchlings and the tracks go everywhere! It appears (from observing the hatchling tracks, bird tracks and fresh ghost crab hole locations) roughly 50 hatchlings made it to the sea, whilst of the approximately 100 eggs in the nest, a number were eaten by laughing gulls and ghost crabs on our beach. See the litter next to the nest chamber?

The state sea turtle permit also requires we inventory nests 3 days after hatching, to count the egg shells and report hatchling numbers to the state of Florida for statistical purposes. This is because the loggerhead is on the endangered and threatened species protection list. Well we know this nest hatched, but oddly we cannot find the egg chamber!  Frustrating and very unusual.

At least we had a laugh finding this sand sculpture nearby . . . do you think the swimmer escaped or ???

this sand builder has a sense of humour!

After consoling ourselves about the disoriented hatchlings we just had to find some cheer. Fortunately we were invited to lunch at the RumFish Grill where the dining room houses a 33,500-gallon aquarium. Said invitation as a result of other volunteering work - there are some perks!

This large tank with underwater viewing is inhabited by large fish indigenous to Tampa Bay and Gulf of Mexico including Frankie, a four foot green moray eel. Frankie shares the coral ledge, rocks and artificial mangrove tree swimming with a stingray, grouper, snook, redfish, spotted trout and lookdowns amongst others. If desired, you can even snorkel in the tank before your meal; seeing the size of Frankie, mini me declined this adventure.

Another tank showcases lionfish, an invasive species wreaking havoc on the reefs of the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and up the Atlantic coast.

Frankie and the stingray

Interesting Side Note: as republished in The Week 21 July 2017:

- average life expectancy at birth was less than 40 before 1800 for all countries in the world, but

- now all countries are above 40!  A thought to ponder . . . The Economist

- and Millennials (75.4 million 18-34 year olds) are now the largest living cohort overtaking their baby boomer parents (74.9 million); PewResearch.org