Irene does damage to turtle nests but numbers still high this season

September 7, 2011|Marci Shatzman

Hurricane Irene took out 150 sea turtle nests on Boca Raton's beaches, affecting about 15,000 hatchlings, according to marine conservationist Kirt Rusenko.

"But we have 150 nests left," Rusenko, said in an interview from the city's Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. "The good thing is, because we've had all these nests, the hurricane didn't do as much damage as it would have earlier in the season."

How do you know the nests were lost?

We have stakes in the dunes that tell us how far the nests are from that stake, and we use GPS to find where the nest was. For some, we were standing in the water, and some were buried.

Is this prime sea turtle hatchling season?

The first hatchlings were out in June, but the peak is July and August. This happens every year, unfortunately. We lose 10 percent every year to storm events. The season officially goes to Oct. 31. We have had a high number of green turtles [vs. loggerheads], who come in later, so chances are we will have hatchlings in October.

We do our hatchling releases every night and four nights a week for the public, to put hatchlings on the sand and let them run into water. It helps filter out the hatchlings that are exhausted. Friday is the last public one. [The releases are sold out.]

I know Gumbo Limbo collects lost hatchlings. Are people bringing them in?

From Aug. 26 to 28 people brought 300 in those three days and they're still bringing them in. We always have a hatchling drop-off box. Every year, we deal with anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000. People find them on the beach, in storm drains and swimming pools.

How do people turn them in?

There's a cooler at the front door, and they can drop off 24 hours a day [at Gumbo Limbo, 1801 N. Ocean Blvd., Boca Raton]. If the gated is locked, they can walk up and drop in them in the cooler. It's checked several times a day.

What happens to the hatchlings that are turned in?

As we get hatchlings, the staff takes them out to release them. They have to take them the first day because of their limited amount of energy. They won't be healthy enough to make it out there. Those who can't make it on their own, we feed them, and volunteers boat them out to the sargassum, [free floating seaweed found offshore], from 10 to 20 miles. When they find the weeds, they just set them in and they stay on the surface. They eat what lives in the seaweed.

Who takes them out to sea?

The boats are from private individuals and the captains donate everything, even the gas, and they take out at least one person and whoever they can fit. It can take four or five hours because they have to search around.

So how much harm did Irene do to the hatchlings?

Probably not a lot to the releases, but to the nests. The good thing is that this is the highest nesting for loggerheads since 2000. The last two years have been extraordinarily high after 10 years of decline. The best guess many researchers are thinking is our beaches were not protected and there were no lighting ordinances years ago, so maybe work on the beaches is finally paying off.

Is weather the biggest killer of sea turtle hatchlings?

What kills hatchlings more than storms is lighting. They look for the lightest horizon with the darkest background. They orient to the lightest thing, so they've been known to walk into bon fires. That's why they end up in storm drains and parking lots and on A1A.

So how does the city prevent that from happening?

In Boca we have a lighting ordinance, so if you live on the beach you draw your drapes and keep porch lights off. Generally those properties are pretty good at maintaining a dark but safe atmosphere.

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