Hurricane season poses serious threat to sea turtles
By
Chaffin Mitchell, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Dec 1, 2020 3:50 PM EST
Researchers tracked a group of Florida Leatherbacks that traveled thousands of miles during an active hurricane season.
When hurricanes uproot lives, down power lines causing massive outages, rip off roofs and flood entire cities, people are not the only populations that are affected. Wildlife, such as sea turtles, can also be harmed by Mother Nature's wrath.
Sea turtle nesting season happens to intertwine with the majority of Florida’s hurricane season, causing many hurdles for endangered and critically endangered turtles. Marine turtles often feel the first blow from hurricanes as storms make landfall along the coast.
In Gainesville, Florida, Dan Evans, the senior research biologist of the Sea Turtle Conversancy, along with David Godfrey, the executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy, work together to spread awareness about the dwindling sea turtle population and the multitude of challenges turtles face, including hurricanes, year-round.
“The real impact from storms comes to the nesting beaches or on the nesting beaches. There are still beaches in Florida with eggs toward the end of the season,” Evans told AccuWeather’s National Reporter Bill Wadell in an interview.
It’s the erosion of the beaches due to these storms that could wipe out nests and disturb the turtles' habitats.
The developing sea turtle babies need to breathe air while in their eggs. Therefore, the female turtles lay their nests high up on the beach above the high tide mark so they will not flood. However, hurricanes can stir powerful storm surges, which can flood the nests, causing the embryos in the eggs to drown. Strong wave action can also cause the beach to erode, which can expose sea turtle eggs, leaving them prone to drying out or exposed to predators.
Florida beaches saw many washback hatchlings, including these three, due to Tropical Storm Eta. (Sea Turtle Conservancy)
“In addition, hatchlings that have been just left [on] the beach are often washed back, washed back up on your shore. In Florida, there is a stranding network for both dolphins, whales, birds and turtles. And so you have people out there on those beaches looking for those washbacks to try to pick them up as well,” Evans said.
Some of the most notable impacts occurred following Tropical Storm Eta's late-season trek across the state amid a record-setting season. Volusia County near Daytona Beach, Florida, had nearly 100 sea turtle hatchling washbacks, one marine center reported according to WTSP. Species among those pushed ashore by Eta were hawksbill, loggerhead and green sea turtles.
One of the most devastating storms for sea turtles struck the Sunshine State more than 20 years ago. High winds and surf blasted Florida’s east coast when Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999, washing out thousands of nests, resulting in the deaths of as many as 50,000 to 100,000 hatchling sea turtles, according to state sea turtle specialists.
“As far as adults, the storms interfere and sort of mess with their ability to feed for a little while. But overall, they’re really pretty tolerant of storms and hurricanes,” Evans said. The Sea Turtle Conservancy has tracked multiple adult turtles enduring hurricanes over the years, and Evans noted that research scientists have never observed any major impacts from the storms.
The adult sea turtles, especially leatherbacks, swim out in the ocean. They stay under the water and waves, he explained. As long as the turtles can come up and get a fresh breath of air, they can weather a storm.
But even though the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season officially ended on Nov. 30, there are other weather factors besides active tropical cyclones that are detrimental to turtle populations over time.
“It’s getting warmer and that has a direct impact on sea turtles. [It's] not just the frequency of storms and the fact that there’s more erosion and sea level rise on important nesting beaches,” Godfrey told Wadell. "The average temperature on nesting beaches during the nesting season affects the sex ratio of hatchlings."
According to Godfrey, the gender of the eggs incubating in a nest is determined by the temperature at which they’re incubating.
“So we’re seeing lots of beaches, that because they’re so much warmer now, are producing predominantly or even all females, and that has serious repercussions for the population,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey and Evans have worked tirelessly for years to inform people of their conservation efforts. After tracking turtles for nearly 20 years, they noticed people loved being able to track where the turtles migrate. The team began to share the maps of a few turtle tracks online as part of an educational program for teachers.
The route Freckles, a leatherback sea turtle, took from the beginning of August to the end of October 2020. (Sea Turtle Conservancy)
The track maps became a huge hit and before long, the conservancy had more than 10,000 teachers across the United States using its program.
“We started evolving into something bigger and bigger and finally we said, you know what, we need to make this even more fun. Then the idea of a race came about,” Godfrey said.
That is when the Tour De Turtles first began.
“We said, okay, well let’s set aside a specific amount of time, track the turtles, let everybody watch them. Each turtle will be racing for a particular cause to raise awareness about a particular cause related to conservation, and we’ll see which one can travel the furthest over three months,” Godfrey said.
The race has become a very successful program with corporate sponsors that get to name turtles and become involved in the race, according to Godfrey. The Sea Turtle Conservancy kicked off its 13th annual Tour de Turtles migration marathon at the beginning of August.
Anyone is able to watch turtles such as Freckles or Miss Piggie by visiting conserveturtles.org. People can log on for free, watch where the turtles swim, learn about sea turtle conservation and make contributions to the efforts.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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News / Hurricane
Hurricane season poses serious threat to sea turtles
By Chaffin Mitchell, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Dec 1, 2020 3:50 PM EST
Researchers tracked a group of Florida Leatherbacks that traveled thousands of miles during an active hurricane season.
When hurricanes uproot lives, down power lines causing massive outages, rip off roofs and flood entire cities, people are not the only populations that are affected. Wildlife, such as sea turtles, can also be harmed by Mother Nature's wrath.
Sea turtle nesting season happens to intertwine with the majority of Florida’s hurricane season, causing many hurdles for endangered and critically endangered turtles. Marine turtles often feel the first blow from hurricanes as storms make landfall along the coast.
In Gainesville, Florida, Dan Evans, the senior research biologist of the Sea Turtle Conversancy, along with David Godfrey, the executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy, work together to spread awareness about the dwindling sea turtle population and the multitude of challenges turtles face, including hurricanes, year-round.
“The real impact from storms comes to the nesting beaches or on the nesting beaches. There are still beaches in Florida with eggs toward the end of the season,” Evans told AccuWeather’s National Reporter Bill Wadell in an interview.
It’s the erosion of the beaches due to these storms that could wipe out nests and disturb the turtles' habitats.
The developing sea turtle babies need to breathe air while in their eggs. Therefore, the female turtles lay their nests high up on the beach above the high tide mark so they will not flood. However, hurricanes can stir powerful storm surges, which can flood the nests, causing the embryos in the eggs to drown. Strong wave action can also cause the beach to erode, which can expose sea turtle eggs, leaving them prone to drying out or exposed to predators.
Florida beaches saw many washback hatchlings, including these three, due to Tropical Storm Eta. (Sea Turtle Conservancy)
“In addition, hatchlings that have been just left [on] the beach are often washed back, washed back up on your shore. In Florida, there is a stranding network for both dolphins, whales, birds and turtles. And so you have people out there on those beaches looking for those washbacks to try to pick them up as well,” Evans said.
Some of the most notable impacts occurred following Tropical Storm Eta's late-season trek across the state amid a record-setting season. Volusia County near Daytona Beach, Florida, had nearly 100 sea turtle hatchling washbacks, one marine center reported according to WTSP. Species among those pushed ashore by Eta were hawksbill, loggerhead and green sea turtles.
One of the most devastating storms for sea turtles struck the Sunshine State more than 20 years ago. High winds and surf blasted Florida’s east coast when Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999, washing out thousands of nests, resulting in the deaths of as many as 50,000 to 100,000 hatchling sea turtles, according to state sea turtle specialists.
“As far as adults, the storms interfere and sort of mess with their ability to feed for a little while. But overall, they’re really pretty tolerant of storms and hurricanes,” Evans said. The Sea Turtle Conservancy has tracked multiple adult turtles enduring hurricanes over the years, and Evans noted that research scientists have never observed any major impacts from the storms.
The adult sea turtles, especially leatherbacks, swim out in the ocean. They stay under the water and waves, he explained. As long as the turtles can come up and get a fresh breath of air, they can weather a storm.
But even though the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season officially ended on Nov. 30, there are other weather factors besides active tropical cyclones that are detrimental to turtle populations over time.
“It’s getting warmer and that has a direct impact on sea turtles. [It's] not just the frequency of storms and the fact that there’s more erosion and sea level rise on important nesting beaches,” Godfrey told Wadell. "The average temperature on nesting beaches during the nesting season affects the sex ratio of hatchlings."
According to Godfrey, the gender of the eggs incubating in a nest is determined by the temperature at which they’re incubating.
“So we’re seeing lots of beaches, that because they’re so much warmer now, are producing predominantly or even all females, and that has serious repercussions for the population,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey and Evans have worked tirelessly for years to inform people of their conservation efforts. After tracking turtles for nearly 20 years, they noticed people loved being able to track where the turtles migrate. The team began to share the maps of a few turtle tracks online as part of an educational program for teachers.
The route Freckles, a leatherback sea turtle, took from the beginning of August to the end of October 2020. (Sea Turtle Conservancy)
The track maps became a huge hit and before long, the conservancy had more than 10,000 teachers across the United States using its program.
“We started evolving into something bigger and bigger and finally we said, you know what, we need to make this even more fun. Then the idea of a race came about,” Godfrey said.
That is when the Tour De Turtles first began.
“We said, okay, well let’s set aside a specific amount of time, track the turtles, let everybody watch them. Each turtle will be racing for a particular cause to raise awareness about a particular cause related to conservation, and we’ll see which one can travel the furthest over three months,” Godfrey said.
The Tour De Turtles leatherback sea turtles results. (Sea Turtle Conservancy)
The race has become a very successful program with corporate sponsors that get to name turtles and become involved in the race, according to Godfrey. The Sea Turtle Conservancy kicked off its 13th annual Tour de Turtles migration marathon at the beginning of August.
Related:
Anyone is able to watch turtles such as Freckles or Miss Piggie by visiting conserveturtles.org. People can log on for free, watch where the turtles swim, learn about sea turtle conservation and make contributions to the efforts.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
Report a Typo