Loggerheads made most of the more than 400 sea turtle nests marked on AMI beaches to date this summer but Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring also has documented the presence of another species — greens.
By the end of July — three months into nesting season — AMITW had marked 10 green sea turtle nests and the first of the green nests had hatched.
The turtle watch team marked another green nest the week ending Aug. 13, as well as a couple of false crawls by chelonia mydas.
Some facts about the largest of the hard-shelled sea turtle species from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
- Greens weigh 250-400 pounds in adulthood and measure 3-4 feet in length.
- Their lifespan is not known but they are estimated to live at least 70 years.
- They nest in more than 80 countries, with the two largest populations found at Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Raine Island on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
- In the United States, nesting greens are primarily found in the Hawaiian Islands, Florida and territories such as Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Nesting also occurs annually in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas.
- Nesting activity has been recorded in almost every coastal county in Florida but most green turtle nesting is concentrated along the state’s southeast coast — on the Atlantic.
- About 100-1,000 green turtles annually nest on Florida’s beaches.
- Like other sea turtles, greens surface from the water to breathe.
- Females are solitary, night-time nesters that lay eggs on land.
- Greens lay about 110 eggs per nest and will nest every two weeks over several months before leaving a nesting area and returning to foraging grounds.
- Greens are great travelers, migrating hundreds to thousands of kilometers between their foraging grounds and nesting beaches.
- The hatchlings orient seaward by moving away from the darkest silhouette of the landward dune or vegetation to crawl toward the brightest horizon. On undeveloped or protected beaches, they crawl toward the open horizon over the water.
- Green turtles are the only herbivorous species of sea turtle, consuming a diet mainly of algae and seagrasses, though they may also forage on sponges, invertebrates and discarded fish.
- Threats to the species, protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, include bycatch in fishing gear, climate change, direct harvest of turtles and eggs, disease, loss and degradation of nesting and foraging habitat, ocean pollution and marine debris and vessel strikes.
For more information about AMITW, call the nonprofit at 941-301-8434, email info@islandturtlewatch.com or go online to islandturtlewatch.com.
Tracking Suzi
The Sea Turtle Conservancy’s Tour de Turtles hard-shell marathon began Aug. 1 with 12 sea turtles being tracked using satellite telemetry to boost science, research and education.
Anna Maria Island’s entry, Suzi, is a loggerhead tagged and released June 27 at Coquina Beach in Bradenton Beach.
Suzi’s distance as of Aug. 21 in the Tour de Turtles: 566 miles.
Suzi’s ranking in the Tour de Turtles: Second.
People can follow Suzi’s journey at tourdeturtles.org.
— Lisa Neff