ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — In Pinellas County, Sea Turtle Trackers are keeping a close eye on the remaining sea turtle nests. In some areas, beach erosion makes protecting those nests impossible in some areas.
Sea turtle hatching season goes through late October. But this year, record summer temps helped some hatchlings beat Hurricane Idalia.
"The hotter sand, they incubate faster," Joe Widlansky explained.
Widlansky volunteers with Sea Turtle Trackers, monitoring up and down the coast of St. Pete Beach and Shell Key. When Hurricane Idalia moved through Pinellas County's coastline, it took a lot of sand with it. Many beaches are severely eroded. Beach crossovers are impassable. The dunes are damaged.
"It could have been catastrophic," Widlansky said. "I would say we've had storms in June before, in July, and pretty much wiped out everything that we had. So the timing of this storm was good."
He's referring to when most sea turtle nests hatched this season. There are only a small handful of nests that have yet to hatch, despite the season still having roughly seven weeks left.
This season, along St. Pete Beach and Sand Key there were 99 nests. In a typical season, there are around 160.
Sea Turtle Trackers say that’s likely because of beach erosion. If momma turtles can’t find a safe place to lay their nest, they’ll leave and look for another beach. In the worst cases, they won't nest at all.
"If the timing is wrong, the turtle will actually drop her eggs in the water if she really has to. And then she won't nest at all," Widlansky said.
With so much of the beaches eroded, then washed away further by Hurricane Idalia, Sea Turtle Trackers are hopeful beach renourishment projects happen here soon.
"It's very important, they need to be able to obviously have good sand where they can dig into to make a nest," he said.
While hatchlings made it to sea okay this season, volunteers are concerned about where turtles will nest next year.
Sea Turtle Trackers say a few nests were lost to Hurricane Idalia. Because the storm came late in hatching season, and the heat forced many nests to hatch early, the damage wasn't nearly as severe as it could've been.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.