Panama City Beach Turtle Watch

PCB Turtle Watch has now completed their remake of the Disney movie “Holes”.  We had 8 nests that suffered from washover and/or accretion from Tropical Storm Alberto mid June that stopped the development of the eggs.  None of these nests showed signs of having hatched so as each one reached day 80 from being laid they were excavated to locate and count the number of eggs.  These excavations were not announced to the public and our lead excavator enticed volunteers to attend under the guise of a free boot camp, focused on an upper body workout.  Some of these nests had over 3 feet of accretion that had to be moved just to reach the original beach level to then dig another 2 foot looking for the eggs.  After many hours of moving many cubic yards of sand, digging out completely buried nest stakes and caution/survey tape and filling the holes back in, we have now excavated all of these failed nests.  We appreciate the hours and physical effort put forth by every one of our volunteers that helped us during these excavations.  We always appreciate our volunteers but to willingly sign up night after night for these excavations receives an extra special Thank You!

Excavation of these 8 nests revealed 506 unhatched eggs that showed little to no development. Sea turtles can nest 3-7 times in a season so while these nests weren’t successful, we’d like to think other nests laid by these females have or will have much better results this season. Stay up to date on total number of nests hatched and hatchings that have emerged here on our website, we are at over 1600 hatchlings so far this season!

Activities performed under MTP-038

Our volunteers have stayed busy the last week with nests hatching every few days, around incubation day 55. Many hatchlings have been disoriented requiring they be recovered and released on a darker part of our beach. After a nest hatches, an excavation is scheduled to assess the nest contents with the excavation and results being announced on Facebook.

This week we will reach the day 80 mark for several nests that were impacted by Tropical Storm Alberto. Three of these nests suffered a good deal of wash over due to high surf and 2-3 foot of additional sand being placed on the nest. Others had washout or washover that likely stopped the development of the eggs. Volunteers will schedule private excavations of these nests to try to locate the eggs to at least determine how many had been laid. These nests are numbered in the teens, so we hope that those females returned weeks later here in the Panhandle to lay some other nests that are having better hatch success.

We appreciate all of the hours our volunteers are spending now on hatching monitoring, recovery and excavations!

We are well into our hatching season with nest 23 having recently hatched!

We continue checking the beach in the mornings for new nests but have not had any recently and remain at 34 nests having been marked for protection this season. On the flip side we are having nests hatch every couple of days at this point, commonly occurring overnight. Our volunteers have been trained by FWC on rescue and recovery of disoriented hatchlings. We have had a couple of nests where the hatchlings made it to the water unassisted but we have had many more nests hatch where the hatchlings have been disoriented and rescued and released that same evening by volunteers. Our volunteers then excavate the nest 3-4 days after a hatch to determine the hatch success based on the nest contents which will then be reported to FWC. We announce public excavations via our Facebook page Events section and we stream on Panama City Beach Turtle Watch Facebook or post videos/photos as a way to keep everyone updated on the results so stay tuned there for those details. We do have several nests that experienced washover and sand accretion that may have slowed or stopped development of the eggs. We will conduct private excavations of those when the time comes. In the meantime we’ll stay busy with the remaining non-washed over nests!

Everyone can do their part in by leaving the beaches clean, dark and flat. Every little bit can help and make a difference for this protected species.

Weekend survey mornings just won’t be the same…for two seasons Gabriel Walsingham, a GCSC student, has conducted weekend morning ATV surveys for our PCB TW program. He showed up before sunrise ready to work, found crawls, recorded the required data and coordinated with volunteers to mark nests. He also checked on the nests daily and recorded data for hatched nests. Gabriel became familiar with and protected our local shore birds and other wildlife species along the way. We wish Gabriel the best as he continues his studies as a new University of Central Florida student!

We were honored to participate in the Science and Discovery Center’s Pirates and Mermaids camp this past week. Our volunteers shared information about our program and then allowed the campers to see some of the specimens up close. Young minds are like sponges and the campers were attentive and had the opportunity to learn about Sea Turtles and ways we can all help protect them.

In anticipation of high surf/surge this week we’d like to share some info that may be useful while you are visiting our beaches.

As per this year’s FWC permit guidelines, we leave nests in place when they are found and mark them for protection in their original location. That may put the nest at risk of wash-over or wash-out the two plus months it is incubating on the beach. If you see any exposed eggs (they look like ping pong balls) leave them where they are and contact us here on Facebook or via non-emergency PCB Police at 850-233-5000 and we’ll have our volunteers respond. Each nest is marked with a green tag that has the nest number, we’ll need that info and/or your location.

Our surveyors check the nests at least 4 times a day but having extra sets of eyes on our nests never hurts, so thank you for reporting any eggs you may see. But please, never replace any of the stakes or dig for the eggs, our volunteers will assess the situation and take care of it.

Sea turtles lay nests approximately every 2 weeks during the season. So while a couple of nests may be impacted, we’ll hope that the others are very successful!

Photo: Nest from a previous season that eroded and had exposed eggs

Work performed under MTP-038

Our volunteers are busy and they are loving it! We continue to find new sea turtle nests and expect to do so for the next few weeks. At the same time, with nests having been on the beach for 2+ months now we are experiencing hatches.

Nesting and hatching typically happen overnight. Please refrain from using any light around a sea turtle. White light and flash photos can be temporarily blinding to them leading to disturbance and disorientation. While you are on the beach, FWC recommends the use of red LED flashlights, give them a try you’ll find your eyes adjust a lot better as well with the red LED flashlight. Also turn off your exterior lights and leave your curtains/blinds closed to reduce interior lights from causing any disorientation.

If you do encounter a nesting turtle please call PCB Police non-emergency at 850-233-5000. If you encounter any hatchlings, you can call them or call the number on the blue sign posted at the nest. Either contact method will reach our volunteers so they can respond. Then stand away from the turtle(s) and give them space.

We don’t post nest locations or when a nest might hatch and quite frankly we don’t know for sure, it’s nature. Our volunteers even miss the hatch a lot of the time because it can happen anytime and can be quick once it starts.

What we will post is any excavations that we can invite the public to attend. Stay tuned to the Events section of our Facebook page for those announcements. If you can’t join us in person, check our page around that time and we’ll try to stream live on Facebook with the video available for replay later.

Now that our 2024 hatching has started we would like to recognize two of our volunteers heavily involved in our hatching activities.

At the beginning of this season Nancy Evou and Betsy Straley were both recognized by Panama City Beach Turtle Watch with Lifetime Achievement awards recognizing their long running contributions to our program. To relate their years of service to sea turtles, the hatchlings that they helped in their first year could very well be returning to our beaches now or in a few years to lay their own nests!

Our program has been in place since 1991 and let’s just say these two volunteers have done it all! They have contributed countless hours each year and we hope they are able to continue for many more!

In her recent volunteer years, Betsy is out on the beach at night as part of the hatching monitoring team. She also helps with our education outreach initiatives and strandings (sick, injured or deceased sea turtles).

Nancy is involved in just about every aspect of PCB TW. Her volunteer efforts are most often seen through the education outreach, strandings and very much so all of the nest excavations!

We are very appreciative of all of the efforts and hours that Nancy and Betsy give to our program and look forward to having them on our team for many years ahead!

Last night while one set of volunteers was off marking our newest nest, our hatching volunteers received a call about a nest hatching!

Here on PCB, we have very high levels of hatchling disorientation due to artificial beachfront lighting. Our hatching volunteers have been trained by FWC and our local permit holder on procedures for recovering disoriented hatchlings. When a nest has been on the beach about 2 months, volunteers will visit it briefly at night looking for signs of any disoriented hatchlings. We only use red lights when we are on the beach and if turtles are present we try to refrain from even the red light. We ask that beachgoers do the same thing if you are on the beach with a nesting or hatching sea turtle. Think of it like this….you are driving down the road and someone has their bright headlights on “blinding” you OR you are outside at night and someone takes a flash photo of you and now you are “seeing stars”, well that is what it is like for the sea turtles when we shine lights towards them. They then become disoriented and waste precious energy.

You have heard it before
Clean, Dark and Flat
that is what we should strive for on our beaches!

Now that we are in hatching season, we will conduct excavations following a hatch (or when the nest has gone beyond a reasonable incubation period). Stay tuned to Facebook for those events, we will try to give notice a couple days in advance following a hatch. Again, we can’t predict what will hatch tonight, much less a few weeks for now. So stay tuned for excavation announcements via the Events section.

We thank our volunteers in advance for the hours, days and weeks they are committing to helping our protected sea turtles here on PCB. They won’t be able to tell you where a nest is or when a nest will hatch, but they will be able to tell you why they are there and answer questions if you see them on the beach and they aren’t consumed in rescuing hatchlings.

Our teams had an exciting evening Thursday night. While the Leave No Trace enforcement team was patrolling the beach their wildlife observer, driving their UTV close to the high tide line (per FWC permit), spotted fresh sea turtle tracks. They stopped and found a loggerhead in the process of laying eggs. About that time, our volunteers were receiving a call from non-emergency beach police dispatch as someone had seen the nesting turtle and called to report it so they headed to the nest.

The wildlife observer, operating under a permit from FWC, was able to check the nesting loggerhead for any existing passive tags, but none were found. They were able to install tags, so if this nesting loggerhead is encountered anywhere else and the tags are reported to the tag tracking team, there will be a record of when and where the turtle was seen. During this process, beachgoers joined to watch the process, in aww of her size and the entire nesting process. She covered her nest and returned to the water. She may have already nested here in the panhandle this season and may nest again, as they can lay a nest every 2 weeks. Volunteers marked the nest for protection, nest 31!

We very much appreciate all beachgoers looking out for the well being of our nesting and hatching sea turtles. Please remember to refrain from using white light, red light was used sparingly during the tagging process and then no lights. Even without using lights everyone was able to see the turtle and what she was doing thanks to the moon glow.