Florida sea turtles set record with nests totaling over 200,000
Florida has logged another record-breaking year for endangered sea turtles as 25 years of protective laws and volunteerism begin to reap benefits. All Florida’s species of sea turtles are seeing increases, including green sea turtles, loggerheads, leatherbacks, and Kemp’s Ridleys.
“Turtles are a very slow-growing species and often do not return to nest on the beach where they were born until they are about 25 to 30 years of age, which is why the results of the conservation efforts are just now being seen,” Joel Cohen, Communications Director at the Sea Turtle Preservation Society, told ABC News. “The success story echoes that of the bald eagle and American alligators — other species on the brink of extinction that rebounded as a result of protections from the [Endangered Species Act],”
At the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge alone, volunteers and researchers documented over 13,000 green sea turtle nests during the 2023 nesting season, which ended October 31. In the early 1980s, those numbers might have totaled only five or 10.
Regulations that have helped many species of sea turtles recover from the brink include bans on fishing gear that inadvertently catch and drown sea turtles, laws requiring beach-side homeowners to turn off their lights at night during nesting season, and prohibitions on harvesting eggs.