Sea Turtles and Hurricanes

Over the last few days, many people have asked me about sea turtles and hurricanes. Since I'm not a sea turtle, all I can comment on is what I've observed over my many years working with them. The most revealing lesson was from the Leeward Island's hawksbills...



I spent 1998 in Antigua, working with hawksbill sea turtles on Jumby Bay. These skittish animals often nested under sea grapes and button mangroves, like this beauty here.



We satellite tracked about 20 of them in the Caribbean that year, from Barbados to the Yucatan. It allowed us to see what areas they utilized as internesting habitat, and where their home/feeding range was once they were finished nesting.



My colleague, Jordanna, and I followed each turtle on our beach and had a saturation tagging program, meaning we were on the beach every single night from 7 pm to sunrise, documenting each nest and tagging turtles new to the population. We never missed a night, or a nest. We knew each turtle pretty well, and saw them from five to seven times each as they came every two weeks to lay their eggs. Their patterns were pretty predictable, and the satellite tags reinforced and deepened our understanding of their behaviors.



In mid-September of '98, we noticed something very strange. One of our favorite turtles, Wrong Way Peach Fuzz, was swimming south, heading for deep water over two hundred miles away.



Since we knew she was due for a nest, we were confused. Peach Fuzz often did strange things, like swimming in the Follett's pool, but she was a regular nesting female. We never knew quite what to expect from her, but we knew to expect her!



At the time, there was a small hurricane storming across the Atlantic, forecast to swing north of us as a Cat I or II, but the turtles knew better! Once Hurricane Georges finished his trek across the Atlantic, he paused, intensified, and walloped Antigua. We lost 100 nests, representing about 10,000 eggs, hatchlings and potential hatchlings. The next morning, there were eggs everywhere,and hatchlings with yolk sacs tangled in tree branches and debris, drowned by the storm.



We even lost our gorgeous home. The country lost a lot more.



We were relieved to have the turtles return to the beach very soon after Georges, though there was still debris everywhere!

Guess Peach Fuzz and her cohorts knew what they were doing! Always believe what animals forecast -- they seem to read something that we have forgotten how to understand as we allow technology to cloud our instincts. Hope we'll get that magic back sometime soon!

As for this storm season, all I can say is that the turtles and the jellies and the sargassum came early. The Gulf seemed to warm early as well. Otherwise, the weather reminds me of that summer, long ago. For now, forecasters think TS Fay will swing east of us, which is good news indeed. I'm still moving some turtle nests though -- I learned that lesson very well!