Erosion has caused the surf north of the St. Johns County pier to edge closer and closer to a leatherback turtle nest. But officials say that relocating it is not an option and would be dangerous for the eggs.
“Is it in danger of being washed out? Absolutely,” said Tara Dodson, environmental supervisor for St. Johns County.
The leatherback nest is near a sand cliff that has been cut naturally by erosion following the beach renourishment efforts.
Moving the nest won’t happen because of state guidelines which restrict time-frames and reasons for doing so. And the danger associated with turtle nests washouts is part of nature. So turtle patrol volunteers are playing a game of wait-and-see.
Turtle patrols in St. Johns County monitor and record turtle activity at local beaches. Diana Justice, turtle patrol permit holder for the St. Augustine Beaches, said that turtle nests get washed out regularly.
“Of course the goal is for us not to have any washout,” she said.
“This is all part of nature. It’s a natural occurrence.”
Leatherback turtles are rarer than most turtles that frequent local beaches.
Turtles have laid 706 nests on St. Johns County’s beaches this year as of Friday, Dodson said. Of those, 15 are leatherback nests.
Dodson said that if people see a nest washing out or eggs rolling out of the nest, they should not touch the eggs or the nest. Instead, people should call the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office about the sighting.
Justice said that the turtle season has gone well overall and she has seen more turtle nests in the renourished area of the beaches.
Marine turtle permit holders are authorized by the FWC to conduct sea turtle patrol — mark nests, collect data, evaluate and relocate nests.
Meghan Koperski, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission environmental specialist, oversees the marine turtle permitting program for the State of Florida.
Guidelines allow for officials to move turtle nests within 12 hours after the eggs were laid, Koperski said. Movement after that point could damage a membrane within the egg and kill the embryo.
“You could kill the whole nest by moving it,” she said.
Officials can apply for permits to move nests after that, but those types of permits are not issued often. Fish and wildlife officials try to have a natural management policy “in terms of letting nature operate the way that nature does best.”
Also, water washing over the nest won’t necessarily hurt the eggs, she said.
Koperski said that turtles lay multiple nests throughout the season to account for all the things that could go wrong, such as washouts.
Not many turtles survive to maturity.
“They aren’t putting all their eggs in one basket — literally,” she said.
The number of turtle nests that have washed out was not available. However, the following is a list of numbers of turtle nests in Florida that have been negatively impacted by storms, including those that have been washed out, washed over and otherwise flooded. Nests did not have to be destroyed in order to be listed.
Year: Number of nests negatively impacted by storms
— Beth Brost, biological scientist at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission