Hurricane Debby’s surge likely washed out many sea turtle nests

As many as half the sea turtle nests could have been lost, according to one expert estimate.

By Carter Weinhofer
| 5:00 a.m. August 14, 2024

2024 is the 43rd year of Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium's sea turtle monitoring program.

Longboat Key
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The impact was apparent when Longboat Key Turtle Watch volunteers patrolled the beaches after Hurricane Debby passed the area.

As of Aug. 10, Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium reported 1,256 sea turtle nests on Longboat Key. Vice President of Longboat Key Turtle Watch Cyndi Seamon said she estimates about half were lost due to Debby’s surge.

Hurricane Debby made landfall in the panhandle of Florida as a Category 1 Hurricane, but the storm was a tropical storm when it passed offshore from Longboat Key. Still, the storm brought large amounts of rain and flooding, which also impacted the beach.

Seamon said that the Tuesday following Debby was when Longboat Key Turtle Watch volunteers went out to assess the situation and collect stakes that were washed away from the storm. Each sea turtle nest has either two or four stakes.

Longboat Key Turtle Watch volunteers collected over 300 nest stakes after Hurricane Debby.

That Tuesday, Seamon said volunteers collected over 300 stakes in the Manatee County half of Longboat Key. It’s unclear as to how many nests that could be, and Seamon said she expects more stakes to be accounted for in the coming days.

“We don’t really know how many nests we picked up,” Seamon said.

The following day, Mote gave the green light for volunteers to go back on patrol, assess the situation and report back. For the rest of that week, volunteers continued to report back to Mote and re-stake the yellow stakes if they were still around.

Cyndi Seamon and Laurie Schmitt were among the volunteers who spent hours collecting stakes on the beach after Hurricane Debby.

Longboat Key Turtle Watch and Mote personnel are still assessing the nests and making determinations whether to call nests a washout or not.

The official number of nests lost is still to be determined, but a lot of nests were impacted, according to Mote.

Even though the impact is clear, Seamon shared some good news.

From one of the nests that seemed to be heavily impacted by Debby’s tidal surge, volunteers recently discovered the tracks of two hatchlings that survived the storm.

Mote also reported that there have been some new crawls of nesting mothers, and a couple new nests in the past week.

Longboat Key Turtle Watch said in a Facebook post that after a storm, it’s important to adhere to the recommendations and local ordinances to ensure hatchlings can safely make it to the ocean.

A nest thought to be impacted by the storm recently showed signs of a hatchling emergence.

That said, Longboat Key Turtle Watch reminded the public that outdoor lights or lights visible from the beach should be shielded or turned off after dark, holes should be filled in on the beach and beach furniture and debris should be cleared from the beach.

If people find the yellow nest stakes on the beach, Mote advises the public that the stakes should not be placed upright in the ground because they could accidentally hit a nest. The best thing to do is lay the stakes next to the nest.

Eggs found on the beach should not be picked up, but people can reach out to the Mote Sea Turtle Conservation Research Program hotline to report eggs or a nest with exposed eggs at 941-388-4331.

How do storms impact turtle nests?

While Longboat Key Turtle Watch and other organizations do what they can to advocate for sea turtle nest protection, not much can be done in terms of natural causes.

But as Longboat Key Turtle Watch said in a recent Facebook post, nesting numbers are high this season, and sea turtles have strategies — like laying about 100 eggs per nest — to account for natural losses.

According to a 2021 study that looked at these adaptations of loggerhead sea turtles on the Gulf Coast of Florida, storms and surges suffocate eggs and, when nests are left exposed after surges, the eggs are more susceptible to predation from animals like raccoons, coyotes and birds.

But the study also showed that female loggerhead turtles can offset the losses from natural causes by reproductive adaptations like producing large amounts of eggs.

author

Carter Weinhofer

Carter Weinhofer is the Longboat Key news reporter for the Observer. Originally from a small town in Pennsylvania, he moved to St. Petersburg to attend Eckerd College until graduating in 2023. During his entire undergraduate career, he worked at the student newspaper, The Current, holding positions from science reporter to editor-in-chief.