I know, I know! Sorry for the lack of updates here on the site. We have really been very busy out there each night and each morning. This season we are conducting our nightly patrols in addition to patrolling a much larger morning survey area. The Marinelife Center in partnership with Ecological Associates in Jensen Beach is now conducting sea turtle work along the beach from the Martin County line all the way south to MacArthur Beach State Park. This area contains some of the most important nesting beach in the state for leatherback turtles and we are very excited to be out there. It is a lot of work, and I guess the project log posts are suffering. I will try to keep everyone updated!
The season is really going well for us. There are now over 80 nests on Juno beach and it looks like we will set a new record for nests this season! The prior record was from the 2001 season and I think we will see about 25 more nests than that season. The current nest count can always be found in the "Our research" section of this site and the count is updated in near real time.
One sad thing to note about the season is the loss of about 50% of our nests last week due to the large waves from subtropical storm Andrea. She pounded our beach and the leatherback took it the hardest. As soon as the waves subsided though, they returned to nest stronger than before! I am now seeing 4-6 turtles a night here on Juno Beach!
