Everyone enjoys a nighttime walk on the beach from time-to-time. With Florida hosting 90% of the sea turtle nesting in the United States, the chances of encountering a sea turtle during your walk are high. Strictly speaking, it is illegal to look for nesting sea turtles and mark their crawls unless you are listed on a State Marine Turtle permit. If you do not know what to do when you see a sea turtle trying to lay eggs you could scare her back into the ocean. Sometimes this may cause the turtle to drop her eggs in the ocean rather than the beach which is fatal to the hundred or so eggs that are in a typical clutch. Should you encounter a turtle, stop and stand still. I have watched nesting sea turtles pass groups of up to 50 people who were asked to stand still and be quiet. Often, these turtles ended up nesting!
If you need a flashlight, use one with a red light as sea turtles and their hatchlings are less sensitive to this light color. Many local codes prohibit the use of white flashlights on the beach at night. The newer LED flashlights are highly disruptive to sea turtles and they ruin your night vision so you can only see a short distance in the dark; red flashlights do not ruin your night vision. If you see hatchlings heading to the ocean just stop and enjoy the sight; it is rare for casual walkers to see a natural hatchout. If the hatchlings are heading away from the ocean, pick them up and place them near the water or even in the water. This is the only time you can handle a hatchling.
A sea turtle does not lay eggs every time she comes onto the beach. Generally, for every nest deposited, she makes one non-nesting emergence (false crawl). She may dig, but that does not mean she laid eggs! Sea turtle biologists are trained to evaluate the crawl in its’ undisturbed state to make a reliable determination if the crawl is a nest or false crawl. If you watch a turtle come out and dig in the sand then return to the water, DO NOT try to mark the nest; you may erase some of the marks in the sand we depend on to correctly mark the nest and identify the species. Any disturbance on the tracks or nest site makes that determination very difficult, if not impossible. We recently had someone surround a nest site with lumber and PVC pipes; this erased enough of our cues that we could not determine the location of the eggs. Please, if you have watched a turtle, walk away with good memories, and leave nothing else behind!
