Sea turtle nesting on the Florida coast
Checking this season's counts…
From May through October, female sea turtles, nearly all of them loggerheads, crawl ashore at night to lay their eggs in the dry sand. Patrol teams walk the beaches at dawn and mark each new nest with stakes and tape. About two months later the hatchlings dig out and head for the water, usually at night, steering by the brightest horizon.
Nests counted this season
Counts are kept per patrol zone, so nearby beaches share a zone total. Each row names the program that walks that zone and the date of its latest published count.
Where the counts come from
Every count on this page comes from the patrol program that walks that stretch of coast at dawn: Mote Marine Laboratory's Sea Turtle Patrol around Sarasota, the Coastal Wildlife Club on Manasota Key, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, and Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch. Programs publish weekly during the season, and Coasti carries each zone's latest published number.
How to share the beach
- Fill in holes and flatten sandcastles before you leave. A knee-deep hole can trap a nesting female or a hatchling.
- Keep lights off the sand at night. Hatchlings steer by the brightest horizon, and a flashlight or porch light points them the wrong way.
- Give marked nests room. Stakes and tape mean eggs are incubating below.
- Take chairs and canopies in at night. Gear left out becomes an obstacle course on the crawl.
- If you find a hatchling heading away from the water, or an injured turtle, call FWC's Wildlife Alert line: 888-404-3922.
Seen a nest? Report it
Coasti's beach pages take community reports, and turtle nests are one of them. If you spot fresh stakes or a new crawl, open your beach's page and add a Turtle nest report so other beachgoers know to give it room. Patrol programs own the official counts above. Your report tells people what's on the sand today. Find your beach.
Coasti folds each zone's count into its beach pages through October 31. See every beach we cover. Manatee season.
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