If you look down in the sand, you’ll spot their nests. Now things are looking up for sea turtles.
According to the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program, the 2023 sea turtle nesting season was one for the record books.
Based on their preliminary counts from March 1 to Oct. 31, a record-breaking 4,328 nests were documented along the entire coastline in Broward County, excluding the Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.
“The take-home message from this year is that the Endangered Species Act is having a good impact,” said professor Jeanette Wyneken with Florida Atlantic University.
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Wyneken has studied sea turtles for almost 40 years and shared her take on the progress she’s seen with sea turtle conservation over the years.
“When I first started working with turtles in Florida, you would see loggerheads pretty regularly, you would see green turtles nesting but never in the big numbers we got this year and the number of leatherbacks you could almost count on two hands and two feet,” Wyneken said.
This season was also the first time in the history of the BCSTCP that numbers were up for all species of sea turtles in our area, including 3,445 loggerheads, 798 green turtles and 85 leatherbacks.
While these numbers show a positive trend, there’s a bit of a catch. Researchers report that climate change and extreme heat temperatures this summer may have altered the male-to-female ratio among some turtle populations.
“We’re just not seeing a lot of boys. As a matter of fact, we’ve only seen two loggerhead boys and two green turtle boys, which is not great,” Wyneken said.
The temperature of the sand determines the sex of the sea turtle hatchling and when it’s hot, more females are born, affecting the natural balance.
“We’re really concerned about the proportion of males that is not being produced so it’s a big deal for these temperatures to be warm. And it’s an even bigger deal when the temperatures get so warm that the embryos cannot survive and they die in the nest,” Wyneken said.
Despite these heat challenges, an annual survey by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports that the 2023 sea turtle nesting season also smashed records across the entire state of Florida.
While sea turtle nesting numbers have been going up in Broward County, threats such as artificial lighting can still endanger the population.
To report sick, injured, dead or entangled sea turtles, you can call FWC’s Wildlife Alert Hotline at (888) 404-3922.
