Last Nest of the Season

Gulf Islands National Seashore turtle program is down to one final nest, Pensacola Beach 8201. Park VIP Melanie Waite located the nest the morning of August 20th, while doing a very thorough job on the Santa Rosa patrol, overlapping my morning patrol on Pensacola Beach. Melanie does such a great job! I arrived about three minutes after she found the nest, so she didn't even have to call for help assessing whether or not the nest needed to be moved.



Melanie headed off to fill in the data sheet while I searched for the egg chamber. Melanie did take a few minutes to get some great photos of our nest relocation protocol.



Just look at those eggs, nestled snugly in their sandy cradle. Momma didn't crawl very far from the water, but she hit a berm and thought she was on safe, dry ground. In reality, she was only about 5 feet from the previous night's high tide line, so the eggs would not have stayed dry for long if we'd left them in place (in situ).



After documenting how close the nest was to the Gulf of Mexico, all the eggs were gingerly placed in a cooler lined with several inches of sand. It's necessary to be even more gentle with developing sea turtle eggs than you would with a dozen eggs from the grocery store. While they have leathery shells, as opposed to the brittle shells of chicken eggs, a minor jolt could kill a sea turtle embryo in the very delicate first stages of development. That's why only highly trained sea turtle biologists move the eggs, VERY carefully, one at a time...



Then, a new nest location was prepared. I dug an 18-inch deep hole in the sand, shaped like an upside-down light bulb, near the base of the sand fence.



Each egg was then placed in the new egg chamber, in the same position they held in the original nest. Once all 106 eggs were back in the sand, they were covered with several inches of firmly packed sand, and the area was signed to keep beach visitors from disturbing the developing sea turtles. We've waited two months now, and expect hatchlings within the next week or two -- they sometimes develop more slowly when the weather turns chilly!



It's a good thing we moved the nest as Tropical Storm Faye removed that section of the beach just 5 days later. With Gustav and Ike hot on Fayes heels, we were triply happy we moved the nest!

Gustav and Ike deposited an extra two feet of sand on top of the nest, which we carefully swept back to return the nest to more normal conditions. The extra sand could have changed the temperature and/or humidity that the eggs were exposed to, and could have effected their development or survival rate. The nest was also subject to much wave overwash in both storms (though neither hit Pensacola Beach, their effects were widespread!). We don't know how the nest will fare given all the trauma it's been through, but I'm optimistic!



This is the nest today. It's high and dry, but that sand cliff is over 5 feet high... That's quite a drop for the tiny turtles, so we'll be certain to have park staff or an experienced volunteer on hand to help the hatchlings to a safer section of the beach.

There will still be one more sea turtle nest in the neighborhood once this nest hatches. Our good friend Gigi in Navarre Beach still has a nest - from September 7th. Let's hear it for the late loggerheads!

Fort Pickens, Post-Gustav

We were very lucky to avoid most of Hurricane Gustav this past week, but he did leave a few signs of his passage in his wake...



For those of you familiar with our bird nesting areas, you know these signs stand about 5 feet high. With all the sand Gustav pushed around, this is now less than 2 feet off the ground. That's quite a few sand grains re-arranged!



There were breaches in three areas that I could identify, but the water has receded enough that I had no trouble accessing the western point of the island on ATV.



The two remaining turtle nests on Fort Pickens are doing well...



The dunes around them were a little worse for wear. It looks as if there was a breach just west of nest 7111 (the nest in photo above).



The pre-Ivan road was very evident for about a mile-and-a-half.



Drainage ditches were appearing randomly at the west end as well -- the island has to shed the water somewhere!



The marsh looks really good though! The buildings fared well also. Can't wait to have them back in business for visitors sometime soon!

Pensacola Beach and Gustav

I didn't spend much time on the beach today. Somehow, my five foot three, hundred pound frame doesn't stand up well in the TS force winds...



I did, however, check on all of our Pensacola Beach nests. The above, PB 7111, was moved to the sand fence yesterday. The sand fence didn't do too well, but we're hopeful the nest will survive it's early introduction to the Gulf.



All were well washed.



Some had several feet of sand over them...



I was unable to check nests on Santa Rosa and Fort Pickens as the roads were impassable and Fort Pickens has breached. That's probably a good thing as there are still rainbands and tornado warnings...



Can you tell I'm a little over-protective of my turtles? My future kids are going to hate me!

Pre-Gustav at Perdido Key

We had one nest that coned Sunday morning on Perdido Key. I was worried that the turtles emerge in the tropical storm conditions we expected to arrive overnight. or drown in their nest, so I was happy to see them ready to go just before sunset. Sometimes they don't wait for darkness in rainy, cloudy weather, and we certainly had that with Gustav's outer rainbands passing through all day!



All 88 were ready to go! They even seemed to be hugging each other goodbye as they prepared to part ways in the Gulf of Mexico.



This white spider was in the egg chamber -- I've never seen that before! I would remember since I have a pathological fear of the critters...



The surf was a little high, but no where near as bad as it is today, so we decided the allow the turtles to try to swim...



At first, they seemed a bit reluctant...



Til a trail blazer lead the way



and they joined in a game of follow-the-leader...



You can almost hear the cadence: left, left, left, right, left.



Some of them were flipped upside down,



'til a kind volunteer set them right-side-up.



That first wave introduces them to an entire new world.



They sure seemed determined!



It must be quite a first day for the tiny tottering turtles!



Eventually, I had to put my camera away as rain bands started to run through the area.



It was probably for the best -- the weather was giving me a kind hint to move inside! It was pretty calm still, but the radar was impressively red!

Loggerheads Everywhere

I've been remiss in posting the last few days as we got ready for Gustav. We had many nests to move, meetings to attend and all that jazz. We still had tiny turtles too!



These loggerheads are from two different nests, with this photo just taken for comparison. The larger of the two is from Santa Rosa 6241, the smaller from Fort Pickens 6241. The variability within the species in terms of color, size, etc. is so amazing! This isn't the best comparison, but it's what I saw that day.



We had to release stragglers on two separate beaches, but the turtles did well playing follow the leader!

TD Fay

Luckily, Fay is spinning out as a Tropical Depression, though she is kicking up quite a fuss in the Gulf of Mexico this morning.



A few of our nests that were left in situ were under threat this morning, and had been flooded last night. We've moved several over the last few weeks as Dolly, Eduoard and a fierce South Wester blew by, but a few were still in place.... that's no longer the case as they've now been moved to higher dunes much farther from the coast.



Thankfully, the new dunes that Gulf Islands National Seashore and the Santa Rosa Island Authority have been developing are doing well. They provide good habitat for our remaining nests, and help the barrier island, and the mainland, withstand the pounding surf when a storm swings through the area. Sea oats are awesome landbuilders!



It's just an active year for erosion and flooding events -- you can see above just how high the tide was last night, and tonight's may be even higher... Eggs and hatchlings can drown in a nest, and we don't like that! Our tiny endangered species need a little help this year, and we're happy to provide it whenever possible.