We’re working to save sea turtles and you can help

May to October is the season when sea turtles visit our beaches. To report any sea turtle activity, call Bruce Drye at 927-2103, or call the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve at 670-4783. Remember that the Research Reserve is a state office, and will not be open on weekends or after 5:00 p.m. Bruce Drye is the Marine Turtle Permit Holder on St. George Island and has an answering machine for messages.

Resident volunteers walk the beaches of St. George Island every morning to document turtle activity, but there are a few things that our human visitors can do to make a sea turtle’s visit a successful one. At the end of the day, remove all personal articles and refuse from the beach. Any impediments to a turtle’s progress as she attempts to make her way up on the beach, could keep her from nesting. Articles like chairs, coolers, screen tents and gazebos, and boats also keep hatchling turtles from reaching the water. Among the things that can endanger and trap adult and hatchling turtles are holes dug in the sand, these same holes can cause our human visitors to fall and be injured. Please try to fill in the holes at the end of the day.
If you visit a beachfront home, or if you can see the beach from your windows, please drape your windows or dim your interior lights. Use the outside lights only when absolutely necessary, for reasons of safety or security. Check to make sure all the outside lights are off before you retire for the evening. These precautions are important because the nesting turtle is looking for a dark location to deposit her eggs, and will shy away from brightly lit areas. Even more important is the fact that hatchling turtles are instinctively drawn towards light. The horizon over the water would normally be the attraction, but a hatchling will mistakenly be lured to a house light. When that happens, hundreds of baby turtles will expend all their precious energy under a house or in the sand dunes becoming food for crabs, cats, dogs, raccoons, birds and red ants, never reaching the ocean.

When walking the beach at night, allow your eyes to become adjusted to the dark in order for you to walk without a flashlight. Even a flashlight can spook a nesting turtle. If you must use a flashlight, use something red over the lens. If you come upon a turtle, turn off your light immediately, and stand still and quiet, do not approach the turtle. Watch the turtle’s activity from a distance in order not to interrupt her. Since sea turtles are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as well as Florida law, it is against the law to disturb a nesting turtle, its nest or hatchling turtles on their way to the water. Visitor’s observations of turtle activity are important and can be reported to a volunteer or to the above phone numbers.