Thousands of threatened and endangered sea turtles nest on our beaches every summer but bright artificial lights on the beach are causing the animals to become disoriented and ultimately head into deadly danger.
Instead of swimming to the ocean nearly half of the sea turtles in South Florida are crawling toward the city.
The Miami-Dade Sea Turtle and Conservation Program showed NBC 6 pictures of one sea turtle found dead on Ocean Drive near 4th Street on Saturday.
"Pretty much they are going in any direction but towards the ocean," project manager Teal Kawana said.
Kawana said 12 dead hatchlings were also found run over on Collins Avenue. Pictures show other disoriented loggerheads ending up in pools and near buildings and streets that have bright, white light.
"Whenever you have artificial lighting on the opposite of the dune they'll go in that direction instead," Kawana said.
On Thursday night, city leaders held a meeting with residents to discuss the dangers and threats to the hundreds of sea turtles losing their way. It was hosted by Miami Beach Commissioner John Elizabeth Aleman.
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"We had to have a turtle talk because we are seeing a large number of hatchling disorientations this year. I don't know really what changed," Aleman said.
Concerned resident Michael DeFilippi was one of those who attended the meeting.
"It's sad to know that a lot of these turtles potentially can end up dying literally on out streets and not even having a chance to live on our oceans," DeFilippi said.
Businesses and condos can do their part to reduce the impact of lighting on sea turtles. There are three golden rules: keep light low, shielded and long.
"Use long wave length light. Sea turtles see light differently then we do," said Kawana.
