JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — As Hurricane Erin moves farther away from Florida’s eastern coastline, members of sea turtle patrol teams, like Kevin Brown with Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol, are left looking for any survivors.
“We had 29 nests in place,” said Brown. “With the storm surge, 23 of them got inundated with salt water.”
Brown serves as a field supervisor for Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol (BSTP), which monitors and evaluates all the sea turtle nests on Duval County’s beaches.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
Duval County isn’t the only place we are seeing damage to sea turtle nests. Lemergecas Meers with Mickler’s Landing Turtle Patrol tells Action News Jax that as of today, out of the 39 nests remaining on Mickler’s Beach, 1 nest is completely gone, 17 nests had some level of accretion or sand build up, 6 nests that were washed over by a wave, and 11 nests that were untouched by the high tide.
Sea turtle nesting season spans from May to October. Brown tells me that with hurricanes, even those well offshore like Erin, the higher tides are still very detrimental to the nests.
“When it washes over the nest, sand moves so two things happen: Either the nest is exposed, or it piles sand on top of the existing nest,” said Brown.
Brown says that one way you can tell that a sea turtle nest has been washed over is by looking at these poles. They normally stand 3 feet tall, with 2 feet sticking out of the sand. We measured the poles surrounding one of the sea turtle nests on Jacksonville Beach. It stood around 17 inches tall.
“A lot of times the extra sand cuts off oxygen,” said Brown. “If it’s exposed, the sand is exposed to the nest.”
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
Brown says the nests can’t be exposed to too much saltwater, as well.
“When the waters been there for too long, the eggs get soggy,” said Brown. “They become infertile.”
As for what damage was done, only time will tell.
“We were really hoping that a lot of these nests emerged before the storm came,” said Brown. “So we’re kind of in a really vulnerable stage right now.”
Brown says as per FWC policy, they can’t go into the nests and evaluate them until 3 days after the sea turtles emerge from the nest or 70 days after being in the incubation period.
Due to the higher tides, they also can’t tell if the sea turtles have already hatched and made their way to the ocean because the water washes their tracks away.
If you see any damage to sea turtle nests in Duval County, call Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol at 904-613-6081.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
