AMITW hosts first Turtle Talk of season

Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring hosted its first lecture in a series called “Turtle Tracks and Shorebird Facts” May 7 at Holmes Beach City Hall.

The series will take place 10-11 a.m. Tuesdays through August, except for May 28 and June 25, when the presentations will start at noon.

The talks are aimed at educating the public about sea turtles, their habitat and nesting season and how people can be good beach stewards. About 20 people attended the first session.

Female sea turtles come to the shores of Anna Maria Island to lay their eggs from May 1-Oct. 31. The first nest was already found in Holmes Beach on May 1. As of May 10, there were six nests and four false crawls found to date in 2024.

The last time AMITW hosted turtle talks was 2018-19, according to sea turtle stranding coordinator Karen Anderson, who was the speaker. The lectures were interrupted for a few years by the pandemic and have just resumed this year.

In addition to beach etiquette, Anderson introduced the audience to AMITW’s procedures for monitoring the beach and tracking sea turtle nests.

She talked about how sea turtle tracks, which turtle watch uses to identify a “crawl” through the sand, potentially leading to a nest, vary between different species and even individual turtles within that species.

“Just like with humans, everyone has a different footprint, a different gait,” Anderson said, showing three pictures of loggerhead crawls.

She said loggerheads leave alternating flipper prints in the sand while green sea turtles use their limbs simultaneously to propel themselves forward, leaving symmetrical tracks.

Anderson also described the process of creating a nest for sea turtles.

“They make a vase-shaped chamber… with just two rear flippers,” Anderson said. “They also core it out so it’s amazingly smooth on the inside.”

After camouflaging the nest by covering it with sand, the eggs then incubate, absorbing nutrients from a yolk sack. When they hatch, the turtles make their way up and out of the nest as a group. A depression forms in the sand and the sand begins to “boil” and they start emerging

Anderson talked about the disorientation of sea turtles, which is a major threat to the survival of nesters and hatchlings. It can be caused by predators, but frequently results from human interference; light pollution, noise, and obstacles left out on the beach, such as beach chairs, can all cause disorientation.

Once the new hatchlings reach the water, they swim continuously for three to six days before they reach a floating patch of sargassum, a weed line. There, they find the nutrients and camouflage to be able to grow.

People can help not only by keeping the beach clear of human-made debris but also by avoiding using single-use plastic, especially plastic bags, which look like a meal of jellyfish to sea turtles and other marine animals.

“You can be a beach hero,” Anderson said.