First Hatchlings of 2009 Season on PCB

First Hatchlings of 2009 Season Arrive on Panama City Beach

August 5, 2009
By PAT KELLY / News Herald Writer

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The season’s first sea turtle hatchlings arrived on the beach Sunday, (August 5th) and were tenderly midwifed to their new watery home by volunteers.

More than 80 of the baby turtles emerged from nest No. 3, located behind Coral Reef Condos on Thomas Drive, said Nancy Evou, assistant coordinator and educational programmer for Turtle Watch, a part of the St. Andrew Bay Resource Management Association.

“It was the first nest of the season to hatch,” Evou said of the 15 Bay County nests discovered by Turtle Watch this loggerhead nesting season, which began March 1 and stretches through Oct. 31. Some of the small hatchlings managed to march their way to the water on their own, but most became disoriented Sunday night by bright lighting along the beach, said Lorna Patrick, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Tammy Carpenter, a Bay County educator who was watching the drama with her 11-year-old son Cody, said many of the turtles “were bound and determined to go opposite the water and toward the bright lights.”

“We cheered when they made it to the water,” she said, noting that Coral Reef Condos was not the source of the lighting confusion. Baby sea turtles instinctively shift toward the brightest horizon as they materialize from their eggs, Patrick said. Without the man-made landside lighting, they would move toward the Gulf, especially with a moon overhead, such as occurred Sunday night.

Volunteers are trained to monitor the hatchlings as they begin their journey, recognize the disorientation and stop the turtles from shuffling toward the dunes, where they would perish, Patrick said.

The confused turtles are relocated to a darker stretch of sand, such as Sunnyside Beach, where homeowners have been working with biologists since the 1990s to make the beach more turtle-friendly, Patrick said.

“It was a success,” she said. “Everyone was happy.” Evou said most of the nests, each containing an average of 100 to 120 eggs, have already been found this year. After a nest is discovered, volunteers begin monitoring it for activity. Some nests, such as nest No. 3 with its 106 eggs, are relocated closer to the dunes because they are too near the water.

Once the first turtles hatch from a nest, experts move in a day or two later to excavate and check the hatched egg count, Evou said. “It is normal to have some unhatched eggs,” she said.

Last year, Turtle Watch found 18 loggerhead nests and tagged two nesting turtles. The nests produced 944 hatchlings from 1,532 eggs, or about a 62 percent success rate.

Loggerhead turtles are the most common nesting sea turtles in the Bay County area. Beachgoers are urged to contact the wildlife service, Panama City Beach police or the sheriff’s department if they see the hatchlings or turtle tracks.

Sea turtles are protected by the Endangered Species Act, and while turtle watchers may observe from about 30 feet off, no flashlights or photo flash bulbs should be used if a turtle is seen at night.

The Bay County Tourist Development Council will sponsor an information workshop on turtle-friendly lighting for beachfront property owners on Aug. 11.

For the full article and newsfile photos, visit the News Herald online.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 11:46 am and is filed under PCB News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.