Some days bring rewards, while others prove worrisome.
Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring volunteers continue excavating loggerhead sea turtle nests but not all yield hatched eggs.
Turtle nests are excavated three days — after they hatch to allow more hatchlings to emerge — and then data is sent to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
There are days the data is not favorable and Aug. 1 was one of those days.
The data from two nests excavated Aug. 1 near the 800 block of North Shore Drive in Anna Maria yielded 57 dead hatchlings, 148 unhatched eggs and nine hatched eggs, meaning it’s possible four hatchlings survived.
Raccoons and fire ants predated one of the nests but the other was not predated. So the volunteers were uncertain why the eggs did not hatch.
Beachgoers asked questions about the unhatched eggs: Will they hatch? No. Can they be saved? No.
What caused them to die? The volunteers speculated that it could have been a bad clutch from the start. It also could have been bacteria.
It happens. It’s nature.
A third excavation Aug. 1 near the 700 block of North Shore Drive in Anna Maria was observed by several beachgoers including the Martinez family, visiting from Miami.
The volunteers extracted 84 hatched and six unhatched eggs at the third excavation, which was deemed a successful hatch by the volunteers.
Tracking Esther
The Tour de Turtles chelonian or hard-shell category officially began Aug. 1 and can be followed at tourdeturtles.org.
There are 12 chelonian turtles in the race but only one from the west coast of Florida — Esther, tagged and released June 20 on AMI’s Coquina Beach.
Esther traveled 46 miles through Aug. 4 and appeared to be heading toward Manasota Key.
The tour is led by the Sea Turtle Conservancy, dedicated to the research, education and protection of sea turtles. They started Tour de Turtles in 2008.
The Waterline Resort, Mainsail Vacation Rentals, both located on Marina Drive in Holmes Beach and AMITW worked with the conservancy to make the tagging of Esther possible.
Each turtle has a cause. Esther’s is light pollution.