Panama City Beach Turtle Watch

Brrr….earlier this week nest 47 green hatchlings emerged prior to sunrise and found the mid 40’s air temperatures to be a little too cool.  After they emerged from the chamber and started making their way to the water they became cold stunned leaving them motionless on the beach.  Our morning surveyor found them during her daily nest check, collected them and coordinated with Gulf World Marine Institute as our local FWC facility. They slowly warmed them up, they became active and ready for release.

These hatchlings received a special release care of St. Andrews bay private charters and tours. The hatchlings were escorted offshore a couple miles and released into the Gulf to begin their journey.  The nest was excavated 3 days later (luckily the air temps had gotten a little warmer) to find that the nest produced 128 green hatchlings of which eight were still in the nest during excavation. They were collected and released that evening into the Gulf.

We have two nests remaining on the beach.  One loggerhead nest (and may not due to wash over) and one green nest that should wrap up our season here by mid November.

All activities performed under MTP-038

It’s November but our surveyors and volunteers aren’t done yet! We have three nests still incubating on PCB, two greens and a loggerhead. You have heard us during our excavations mention an average incubation of 60 days. Well that is the case for peak summer. But the three nests on the beach now have been incubating in cooler temps as they were laid later in the nesting season, so incubation is likely to take a little longer.

Unfortunately, one of our nests experienced a good bit of washover during the last week from high surf/surge in that area. The effects of that washover will be unknown until it is excavated. We are still hopeful some hatchlings will emerge, only time will tell.

So stick with us, our season will continue until possibly mid-November.

We don’t announce nest locations or predicted hatch dates. We will announce excavations of our remaining nests if they hatch. That excavation will take place 3-4 days after it hatches so watch for those in the Events section of our Facebook page, Panama City Beach Turtle Watch.

As we approach the end of September, we are excited to announce that we have reached over 3000 hatchlings having emerged so far this season! We still have seven nests incubating on the beach, including four green sea turtle nests, so we hope to see more hatchlings emerge before our season comes to a close. We do not announce the location of our nests or any dates related to a possible hatch. The only thing we announce (on Facebook) is an excavation that is scheduled once a nest has hatched and takes place 3-4 days after the hatch.

Please remember if you are lucky enough to be on the beach after dark and encounter hatchlings, please do not use any lights (not even red lights and no flash photography) to try to avoid any disorientation. If you do not see volunteers present but see hatchlings, please call the number on the blue sign of any nearby nest or call local PCB Police via non-emergency 850-233-5000 and we’ll send our volunteers out.

Activities performed under MTP-038

In 2024 we had no green nests on PCB.  In 2025, we were happy to see the greens return and we have seven green nests on the beach currently and one of those hatched last night

When greens nest they commit and crawl to a suitable location, move a lot of sand and commonly lay high beach or in the dunes (without respecting the protected sea oats).  That was the case for this nest when she nested in the dunes a couple months ago.  Last night hatchlings emerged and made their way to the water from this nest.  We’ll be announcing this excavation soon but couldn’t wait to share the news that green hatchlings have hit the beach this season

Photos: a green hatchling heading to the water during 2023 and the 2025 nest the morning it was found

Activities performed under MTP-038

Under our FWC MTP-038, we conduct a nest excavation three to four nights following a hatch (or at such time that a nest hasn’t shown signs of hatch and is beyond it’s reasonable incubation period). Where possible, we announce those excavations on our Facebook page under Panama City Beach Turtle Watch under the Events section. Knowing not everyone can attend in person and that some beachgoers saw the nest during their visit and may be interested in the outcome, we try to do a Facebook Live of the excavation. If we are unable to Facebook Live, we’ll try to do a video and worst case we’ll post the results and maybe some pictures. Immediately following the excavation, we show samples of the nest contents to everyone in attendance.

For those of you not on Facebook, here is a video of the samples from nest 32. We had hatched eggs, unhatched eggs that won’t hatch at this point and in the chamber was a single hatchling that didn’t make it out four nights prior when the rest of the hatchlings emerged. This hatchling was released that evening into the Gulf.