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Thursday, September 30, 2004 Sea turtle nests finished in VolusiaBy KIM CHIEVRUE | News-Journal Staff Writer Sea turtle nests hit hard by hurricanes Charley and Frances were finished off by Jeanne, local experts say. “There are no nests left north of the inlet, from Ponce Inlet to Ormond-by-the-Sea,” said Beth Libert of the Volusia-Flagler Turtle Patrol. She said there might be a few viable nests left in Flagler County. John Steiner, resource management specialist of Canaveral National Seashore, said that area lost more than 1,000 sea turtle nests during Hurricane Frances and most of the remaining 300 to 400 – including nests dug after Frances – during Hurricane Jeanne. He said some of this year’s hatchlings emerged before the hurricanes, but most of those still in the egg when Jeanne hit were lost. “When you get a hurricane that took 4 feet of sand off the beach – that’s the layer where the eggs were,” Steiner said. He said nests that turtles dug high up in the dunes might have survived, but all the marked nests were washed away. Steiner said the National Seashore had not tried to collect the eggs and move them for safekeeping because such collecting must be done within hours of the eggs being laid, and moving them can disrupt their normal development. “You rebury the eggs, and if the temperature is a degree or so off, instead of females you might get all males,” he said. “So then you’re affecting nature in ways we don’t even know.” Survival odds are against sea turtle hatchlings in any case, he said. “But once they get to maturity, they can live a long time, and a female can lay lots and lots of eggs. So it’s critical that we save the adults.” Jennifer Winters, turtle coordinator of Volusia County, said because it takes 20 years for a sea turtle to reach sexual maturity, it might be years before the impact of this nesting season is felt in the sea turtle population. But there were a few success stories amid the dismal turtle nest news. “We have found some live babies since the storm,” Winters said. Those hatchlings were transported to the Marine Science Center and will be rehabilitated for a few weeks with an eye to returning them to the sea. “We bring them back to health if we can,” Winters said. “Most of the time, they’re just tired.” On the net: HICI Special Report — Sea Turtles Need Help: Can you Dig it? |
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