floridaleatherbacks.com -

First Nest!!!

Kelly Martin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:21:06 -0600

I am happy to report that the first nest was laid in our survey area!! The nest is at the very southern boundary of our regular morning survey area and only the third documented crawl in the state. It just so happens to be 11 days after the nest that was laid in Ft. Pierce on the 22nd (which happened to be eleven days after the crawl reported in Miami on the 11th). My guess is that it's the same turtle. Leatherbacks typically nest every 10-12 days and some of them have been known to nest all over the east coast. It was a frigid 37 degrees here last night! While our survey crew sat shivering, the weather didn't deter this determined leatherback. Unfortunately we are only monitoring a small portion of beach right now to ensure that we are closely watching the nourishment activity so we didn't see this turtle. We hope to catch our first turtle soon though! Stay tuned as the season heats up!

Colder!

Kelly Martin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:08:37 -0600

The temperatures have plummeted here in South Florida. Tonight's lows are expected to be in the mid-30s in northern Palm Beach County and tomorrow may dip down to 32!! We're doing our best to stay warm out there. Still no turtles to report. The nourishment project is moving along well. Right now our nights consist of driving up and down the project area and making an occasional stop for coffee and snacks. Our beaches are visited not only by leatherback, loggerhead and green sea turtles every year but many species of seabird and shorebird as well. Tonight, we noticed two Brown Pelicans resting side-by-side on the beach. After driving past them a second time, Chris caught the reflection from fishing line on one of the birds. Upon closer look, he discovered that both pelicans were wrapped in line and that they were tangled together. We brought both birds back up to the center (which is not an easy task on an ATV!) and removed the line. Both birds were scraped and a little dazed but otherwise ok so we sent them on their way. We want to remind everyone to dispose of fishing gear properly. We often rescue birds and turtles from hook and line entanglement.

Warmer!

Kelly Martin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:44:53 -0600

We're just wrapping up our second survey night. Tonight was about 20 degrees warmer than last night so it was quite pleasant out there. No turtles though :( It's supposed to get cold again for the rest of the week. Most people don't believe us when we say "cold" because after all, this is Florida. But, it is really, really cold! When we're driving on an ATV at 10-20mph into the wind and we're damp from the humidity, 40 degrees feels unbelievably cold! We're all wondering if our unseasonably cold winter will delay the start of leatherback nesting here. On February 11th, there was a leatherback crawl in Miami and on the 22nd, a leatherback nest was reported in Ft. Pierce. We're hoping that we're next!

Here We Go!!!!!!!!!!!

Kelly Martin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:28:18 -0600

Tonight is our first night out on the beach!!! It is a bit early for us to begin but Juno Beach is currently undergoing a 2.5 mile nourishment project and we are responsible for monitoring the entire project area for nesting activity. We work closely with the dredge company to ensure that turtles are not disrupted by the construction activity. Any nests laid in an active project area will be relocated by our staff the night they are laid to prevent any impact from the nourishment activity. The project is expected to wrap up soon. We will begin our normal leatherback surveys around March 15 but we are hopeful to see one or two of our girls before then! Last year, there were three leatherback nests on Juno Beach on March 3rd but since we weren't surveying that early, we missed them. It would be nice to see a turtle or two in the next two weeks to keep our minds off of the cold!! With nightly lows expected in the 40s all week, we are layered up and trying to stay warm! We've all got our bets placed about how many nests there will be on Juno this year. Last year, we were stunned by the phenomenal year and no one even came close to guessing 277! We're hoping this year will be the same! Keep checking back for regular updates!

World Travelers

Kelly Martin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:51:20 -0600

Last season brought us several exciting turtles. We observed our first Canadian-tagged turtle nesting on our beach! The turtle, named "Christie" by the Canadian research group that tagged her, was originally tagged during an in-water capture off Nova Scotia on September 19th, 2007. Satellite tracking data have shown that our turtles typically head to North Atlantic waters after leaving the nesting beach for the summer. Dr. Mike James and his team then take over to learn more about leatherback behavior after nesting season. To learn more about their research project, visit www.seaturtle.ca.

We also tagged two new turtles that were observed nesting on other beaches in southern Florida and Georgia. "Alli", who was our third observed turtle last season (and our first new turtle of the year), was observed by a morning survey group in Boca Raton. "Imani" was tagged on Juno Beach in April and observed nesting on St. Simon's Island, Georgia in June. Each turtle really has it's own distinct behavior. Unlike Alli and Imani, "Eleanor," who was first tagged on Juno Beach in March last season, was observed nesting seven times last year - ALWAYS on Juno Beach.

Keep checking back. The season is fast approaching!

Turtles Everywhere!

Kelly Martin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:40:57 -0600

The research team has been busy lately helping with the recent cold stunning event in the state of Florida. Over the past two weeks, state wildlife officials and rehab organizations have been collecting turtles affected by the cold weather that stretched across Florida. When severe cold snaps hit, turtles are affected by the decrease in body temperature, often becoming immobile and floating to the surface. Many turtles needed extended care at rehab facilities for conditions like pneumonia while others simply needed a day or two to warm up before they were ready for release. Juno Beach served as a primary release site for the first few days and our crew assisted in the release of several hundred turtles over a three-day period. Our modified ATV trailer worked nicely when hooked to the back of one of our research ATVs and we drove loads of turtles down the beach all day long. Our hospital staff members have been busy treating over 80 turtles that required extended care in our rehab facility. Everyone has been putting in extra time and this work would not be possible if it weren't for the help of dozens of dedicated volunteers. Check out a few photos of the events from the past few days:
On another note, we are gearing up for the fast approaching leatherback season!! We are all a little bit antsy to get back out there. We miss those big girls during the winter! We should start our nightly patrols in early March. Everyone is placing their bets on how many nests we are going to get this year and we're curious to see if we can top last year! Stay tuned! As we get into full-swing we will update regularly and let you know who we are seeing this year!

Miles and miles!

Kelly Martin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:53:21 -0600

Each year we put a lot of wear and tear on our ATVs. Every night during leatherback season, we drive up and down a 12 mile stretch of beach in search of nesting turtles. On average, we make 3 round trips each night. Our survey methods have changed a bit and we've accumulated more beach in our survey area but our best guess is that we've driven well over 40,000 miles in the past nine years on our ATVs! That's a whole lot of miles in the cold, rain, wind, heat and bugs in search of nesting leatherback turtles!

Crazy night!

Kelly Martin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:16:01 -0500

On April 22nd of this year, we smashed yet another record. We encountered 13 turtles in a single night! Almost all of these turtles were seen before midnight - it seemed they all came ashore at the same time. There were 17 nests on our survey area but unfortunately we missed four of the turtles. Tagging 13 other turtles keeps us busy and we can't get down the beach fast enough to catch them all! 4 of the turtles seen that night were new turtles that had never been seen before by our staff. 4 other turtles had been seen by our researchers in prior years but were being seen for the first time of the 2009 season that night. The other 5 turtles that we encountered had already been seen previously in the season.

This trend continued through to the next night when we encountered 9 more turtles! Of these, 4 were new turtles. These two incredible nights brought us Ariana, Caitlyn, Cleopatra, Fanny, Juno, Mola, Rikki, Sara, Taylor, Eleanor, Leigh, Pearl, Navi, Remora and our 8 new turtles - Lola, Riviera, Nebraska, Nevada, Florida, Virginia, Kali and Cyndi! Many times, there are interesting stories behind the names of our turtles. Once we get our website a bit more developed, we will have more information about all of our turtles for you. You can also use the search bar to look for more information about some of these turtles in our past blogs.

Total Encounters

Kelly Martin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:44:58 -0500

This year, we encountered leatherbacks a record 332 times! 133 individuals, 332 encounters...we were very busy! About one third of our turtles were seen only one time but the majority were seen several times throughout the season. This year marked another record for us - the number of turtles encountered in a single night...to be continued!

More updates!

Kelly Martin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:13:14 -0500

This year has been a busy one for us! We are now a team of three full-time employees. Christy and I joined Chris in the spring and he is more than happy to have the help! The three of us, along with our seasonal field crew, once again hit the beaches in search of leatherback turtles. Each year, we monitor nightly from mid-March until mid-June. Each leatherback that we encounter gets tagged and measured. Please check out the “Our Research” section of our website to learn more about the history of the project and what we are learning by monitoring this population. We are currently in the process of updating our website to include the individual histories of each turtle encountered by our team. This will allow you to see the name of each turtle and a little bit about her. Once leatherback season gets back into full-swing, we will start writing nightly blog posts so that you can follow along with us as we encounter turtles on the beach. Please be sure to stay tuned for some exciting projects that we have planned for this spring and fun new updates to the website!

The end of the year always brings one thing for the research team – office time! We are very busy writing reports, creating summaries and proposing new work for next season. I have recently begun to compile all of the leatherback data collected over the past nine years! We have come up with some fun numbers and statistics that we want to share with you. Ever wondered how many times we’ve seen some of our turtles? Or how many gallons of coffee we’ve consumed to stay awake all night? Well, that one might be too hard to count but we have everything from the number of encounters to the number of flipper tags applied and even the total miles of beach surveyed over the years. I will start with numbers from this year. We will try to offer one new “fun fact” each day to get you caught up on our research.

Round 1 -

This year – we encountered 133 individual turtles! That is a huge record for us! Since leatherback turtles can nest anywhere from 2-10 times a season…how many total encounters do you think that means? Keep in mind, our results section will tell you how many nests we have on Juno Beach. While Juno Beach is the busiest portion of our survey area, we also monitor Jupiter Beach, MacArthur Beach State Park and Singer Island. Tune in tomorrow…