ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — As sea turtle nesting season comes to a close, experts who work with turtles on the southern end of Pinellas County say the back-to-back hurricanes brought nesting season to an abrupt halt.
Joe Widlansky with Sea Turtle Trackers says the season started off strong and ended early due to flooding from Hurricane Helene. In all for 2024, the group recorded 55 nests and just over 2,500 hatchlings. That’s a steep drop off from the roughly 100 nests logged last year and 162 nests recorded in 2021.
Roughly 35 miles of beach are patrolled each morning during the six-month nesting season and tracked by experts.
The group Sea Turtle Trackers covers the southern end of the county including St. Pete Beach, Pass-a-grille, Shell Key and Outback Key. The team with Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) covers a larger section from Treasure Island through Clearwater.
Widlandsky says July was busy with hatchings. Then during Hurricane Debby in early August, all except for 16 nests were washed away. Of the 16 remaining, three hatched.
“The rest of them we were waiting to see if any of them would hatch,” he said. “But then Helene came along and that was the end of that.”
According to Widlandsky, turtles begin nesting in May and it takes between 50 and 60 days for eggs to hatch. When turtle eggs stay underwater for too long they become unviable, which Widlandsky believes plays a part in what happened this year.
For the last six weeks of the season, the trackers patrolled the beaches as scheduled but didn’t find any turtle activity.
“Next year they might bounce back and have 200 nests but there’s no way to predict,” Widlandsky said.
Clearwater Marine Aquarium has not yet responded to Spectrum Bay News 9’s requests for sea turtle tracking data for the 2024 season.