Wow, I think this may be a big leatherback season here in Florida! Last night the crew working for Ecological Associates saw one of our turtles nesting on Jupiter Island and on their morning survey found five nests! Tonight, Brenda who is working on the same project, found two nesting turtles and both of them were untagged new turtles.
I have been pretty lucky myself! THREE turtles so far tonight! One of them was untagged, and two others were tagged in prior years.
Lyra was first tagged in 2001 and was spotted in 2003 and 2005. She seems to like the area near the Juno Beach fishing pier and has been found there almost all of the times we found her. She has grown quite a bit since 2001 and she is now 163 centimeters long which is about 15 centimeters bigger than when first encountered.
I also found juliananesting shortly after I left Lyra, she was just out of the water when I found her near the Seminole Golf Course
And finally, I encountered a new turtle near the Jupiter Reef Club. She was missing a rear flipper and was having a hard time digging so I helped her a bit by taking a bit of sand out of the hole for her. She quickly laid a large clutch of eggs and headed back to the ocean.
OK, gotta get back out and catch a few more...
