Indian River County - Wednesday September 13, 2023: The sea turtle nesting season is on a record-breaking pace along the Treasure Coast and across the state.
In Indian River County alone the number of sea turtle nests has broken past year records for the Leather Back, Loggerhead and Green sea turtle species.
Quintin Bergman is the Sea Turtle Environmental Specialist in the Indian River County Public Works Coastal Division. “Last Year the Leatherback species broke a record with a hundred and one nests. This year the Loggerhead and Green, both broke nesting records. Overall, we have over 12-thousand nests this season. The last high we had overall was 9-thousand nests.”
Similar nesting records are being reported throughout the state. Bergman credits 50 years of conservation efforts which began in 1973 with passage of the Federal Endangered Species Act. “Sea Turtles take 25 to 30 years to each maturity. So, they can’t reproduce until they’re 25 to 30 years old. So, we are potentially seeing two generations of turtles that were afforded protection.”
Those protections include the end of sea turtle harvesting for human consumption and laws protecting sea turtle nesting grounds. "We have sea turtle lighting ordinances, building restrictions," said Bergman. "Now there are fishing regulations for shrimp trawlers that have to use a device in their shrimp trawl net that actually allows sea turtles to escape."
Although the growth in nesting is a hopeful sign, all three species remain endangered. "We are moving in the right direction but it’s hard to say if the list status will change or not, if we’re going to see that in the next five years, or if it’s going to take another fifty years for the population to actually reach stability.”