Lee hosts strong turtle-nesting season

Nesting season officially ended Friday. Even though most turtle species in the state stopped nesting in September, hatchlings can emerge as late as December.

"It was a low nesting season statewide overall for loggerhead and green turtles," said Blair Witherington, a biologist with the Florida Marine Research Institute. "We believe the colder water on the east coast had a lot to do with it, not so much fewer turtles coming to Florida to nest. West Florida had an average or above-average nesting season for loggerheads."

Colder-than-normal water temperatures along the east coat is thought to have disturbed summer reproductive patterns. Turtles tend to begin breeding only when water temperatures reach 80 degrees and above.

Loggerhead turtles are the most abundant species in this region. Females tend to nest in two or three-year cycles and can lay 100 eggs or so several times in the course of one summer.

Nearly 6,800 south Lee County loggerheads hatchlings survived the summer months at least long enough to take their first swim in the Gulf of Mexico.

Turtle Time Inc., a non-profit group that monitors Bonita Beach, Big Hickory Island and Fort Myers Beach daily during summer months, recorded 99 nests on south Lee County beaches, 106 false crawls and 6,755 hatchlings. For the most part, numbers were higher this year than they've been since 2000, when Bonita Beach alone recorded nearly 6,700 hatchlings.

Numbers were very low at Lovers Key/Carl E. Johnson State Park, where only a handful of hatchlings survived raccoon raids and tidal washouts.

With 18 nests and 11 false crawls, the season was slow for the only beach in south Lee not monitored by Turtle Time, according to park ranger Ronny Glisson.

"We had two washouts and 11 others were (attacked by animal predators) before we got there," Glisson said. "Almost every single (turtle egg) was gobbled down by raccoons. It wasn't a good season for us."

Female turtles typically try to nest on the very beach they were born, but loggerheads returning to Lovers Key face several challenges. Not only have raccoons taught their young to rob nests, an eroding shoreline has also left little room for safe nesting.

Glisson said although the nests were small in number, the dispersal of nests seemed to include most of the park's shoreline.

"They were pretty evenly spread out," Glisson said. "Five were from the Big Carlos Pass area and six were from New Pass. Two of the survivors were from Big Carlos and three were on the south side of the park. All of them made it to the water, which is a good thing."

(Contact Staff Writer Chad Gillis at 213-6040 or cegillis@naplesnews.com )