Loggerhead turtle nesting crashes 50 Percent in Florida

09/10/2006 00:00:00 November 2007. Conservationists claim that loggerhead turtle nesting has declined to its lowest point at the most important loggerhead sea turtle nesting beach in the United States since Florida began keeping official records in the 1980s.

This year only 7,896 nests were laid in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, says David Godfrey, executive director of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, the world's oldest sea turtle conservation group. ‘These turtles are being hammered in the Atlantic fisheries,’ Godfrey said. ‘While addressing this serious threat, we must also make sure reproductive turtles find good nesting beaches when they return home. Unfortunately, in many areas of Florida sea turtles will return to find miles of sea walls and new beachfront development. We are particularly concerned about a new experimental form of coastal defences known as geotubes that are installed much farther seaward out on the beach than traditional vertical sea walls.’

Tank traps
Sand-filled geotubes are like 1,000-ton sandbags. They are being installed on some of Florida's most important nesting beaches by homeowners trying to protect their properties from coastal erosion. Godfrey says geotubes can block turtles from nesting or cause them to nest in suboptimal habitat. 50 Percent decline in nesting in 10 years
Nesting throughout Florida has declined by nearly 50 percent since 1998, a year that saw 21,450 loggerhead nests in the Carr Refuge alone.

All five species of sea turtles in Florida are listed as endangered or threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The Carr Refuge, named after world-renowned sea turtle biologist the late Dr. Archie Carr, is the nation's best indicator of loggerhead nesting populations across the country, Godfrey says.

About 90 percent of all loggerhead nesting in the continental United States takes place in Florida, with the highest nesting densities occurring in the Archie Carr Refuge.

‘Loggerhead sea turtle deaths in Florida, as indicated by strandings - which include dead or dying turtles found on the beach or in the water - have more than doubled during the past decade,’ according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.

Causes of Loggerhead Mortality
While collisions with boats are the most common identifiable cause of trauma in sea turtles that wash up dead on Florida beaches, there are other threats to loggerhead survival. Loggerheads suffer from artificial lighting on nesting beaches that causes hatchlings from nests to crawl inland rather than toward the water.