Florida 'turtle cam' catches loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings headed to sea

WPTV ^ | 7-27-04 | Ashleigh Walters

[FlJoePa]

The race for life begins again. Video at link.

With a survival rate (to adulthood) of way less than 1%, you have to admire their spunk.

[FlJoePa]

From our beach yesterday:

[llmc1]

Cute!

[PistolPaknMama]

Amazing! We had a nest in the dune behind our house on Edisto Beach, SC. I was hoping they would hatch while we were there.

[Explorer89]

I was at a nest excavation three days after a boil last year in NC. I think there were about ten little guys they carried to near the edge of the water to let them waddle down and swim off in the tide. So cute. There was a nest with a shallow depression that my family staked out in the evenings for our week on vacation, but it boiled two days after we left. This year, our vacation was too early :(

[FlJoePa]

If you're ever in our area (Juno Beach), visit the Loggerhead Marinelife Center.

Great (all volunteer) facility with lots of turtles and information. Great for kids especially.

[B4Ranch]

Most of there deaths are because locals eat the eggs. Last year someone posted a picture of some turtles laying eggs on a beach and, and included the local village which was 1/4 mile further up the beach. There was about 20 women with baskets on their shoulders carrying eggs out of the nests.

:

[FlJoePa]

Well, that doesn't go on in civilized countries. You still see arrests of egg poachers, but in the last 20 years it's been reduced to nothing. I'd say racoons eat a lot more eggs than poachers.

When they hatch - crabs, hawks, seagulls, and others can grab them on the beach. Once in the water, it's even harder for them to survive. Any number of species will swallow them whole like we'd eat a nacho chip.

From yesterday on Loggerhead Beach:

[Louis Foxwell]

Eat a sea turtle egg in the US and pay $10.000 and spend 5 years in jail. Less than 1% survive because the number hatching are way below the escape numbers needed for sustainability. Solution? Simple. Take the restrictions off private ownership and watch the numbers soar into the stratosphere.
Current law is all about reducing the population to below sustainability in order to keep the bureaucracy growing.

[Shery]

That turtles exist at all is a wonder. At my mother-in-law’s house on the eastern shore of VA, the turtles lay in the fairly barren yard, but the crows are watching from the trees, wires, whatever. If the turtle sees them, they will not leave, but if not, the place they laid is immediately attacked and the eggs are gone. We try to run out and cover them with a basket for a few days when we see them lay, but you can’t get them all. Sad, really.

[B4Ranch]

I’m glad someone understands what’s happening.

[FlJoePa]

Well, I'm one that believes the survival rate is pretty much the same as it's always been - since before man.

To think that we can change it, or manipulate it to suit an end goal or agenda doesn't seem any more believable than our controlling the climate.

These numbers are from just 9.5 miles of beach (Juno Beach to Jupiter Island):

Leatherbacks: 265 nests
Loggerheads: 9,722 nests
Greens: 580 nests

There are things that man has screwed up (dumping Lionfish in the Atlantic and Anacondas in the Everglades, for example), but attempted management of turtles just doesn't qualify in my book.

[Louis Foxwell]

The population of sea turtles is 1% of the high from the mid 1800’s. Harvesting reduced the population to a point that is unsustainable.
Multiply your figures by a factor of 100 and you will have some idea of the hatch that allows a portion to escape predation. Currently there is 100% predation of the hatchery. None survive to adulthood.
If the current trend is to be reduced it will require privatization. Only then will it be possible for the population to rebound to sustainable levels.

[trisham]

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[FlJoePa]

OK...I sort of misunderstood where you were going.

When you say “private”, I assume you mean “off campus” - away from the beach - or at least a protected environment? At what point do they get released? They’ll still be fish food, no?

Loggerhead releases hatchlings out in the middle of the ocean at times and I always wonder how long they’ll be around.

[Louis Foxwell]

Release is a function of size. There is an escape size that maximizes the likelihood of escape from predation. Between 12 and 20 inches is probably sufficient. Also, release from the beach where they were born is important to create a homing pattern.
Babies spend one to two years in the local where they were born before risking travel on the open sea. Released turtles do the same. They thereby bond with the location allowing the females to return to that same beach to lay eggs.
Current procedures do not increase the population. In fact they decrease it. The babies must be protected until they are large enough to escape predation from birds and most mid size fish. This is a very simple procedure. It is not followed because a substantial increase in sea turtles will reduce the necessity of maintaining a bureaucracy and set of draconian laws that elitists prefer to maintain. It really is just that simple and applies to a wide range of creatures.
The EPA is the chief culprit in preventing endangered populations of animals from rebounding. Were the list of endangered creatures dwindling the EPA would have its budget cut. They will not allow procedures and policies that reduce the need for their tyranny.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

If the current trend is to be reduced it will require privatization

What does privatization mean? Turtle farms so you can make turtle soup? Why else would any one care to spend their money on turtles? I don't see how privatization increases the wild population.

[Louis Foxwell]

Clearly you are not a herpetologist. Millions of people keep and raise many kinds of turtles, frogs, tortoises, lizards and snakes. There is extremely high interest in raising sea turtles among a large number of breeders and hobbyists.
The world population could easily double in ten years if these experts were not threatened with fines and imprisonment for helping the magnificent turtle rebound.