I am proud to announce that my name has been added to the Marine Turtle Permit that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Imperiled Species Management Section gives to the Coastal Wildlife Club every year which authorizes them to survey sea turtle nesting areas. There are 3 long term permit holders and several of us have been recently added on an existing permit. This authorizes us to, conduct nesting surveys, conduct stranding/salvage activities, relocate for conservation purposes, screen nests when needed and maintain and display preserved specimens.

These are the Loggerheads that nest on our beaches here, Caretta caretta. Yesterday I got to get very hands on. About 3 days after a nest has hatched, volunteers excavate the nest, look for surviving turtles, count the unhatched eggs if any and count the egg shells to know approximately how many were in the nest.

This excavation was especially important as Kate and Jacob, 2 samplers from the University of Florida were on hand to collect unhatched eggs and dead hatchlings. They are collecting data from many nests and trying to see if there is any connection with turtle mortality and the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this spring.

That's Wilma in the first photo digging the first nest and showing us how. 

I got to dig the the next 3, it was very interesting.  Emily loved it.

 The first nest I excavated had lots of unhatched eggs, they thought it might have been due to too much water over the nest.  We had a few big storms, one that actually washed out several nests.

 All three nests had egg shells, evidence that healthy turtles had hatched and made it out of the hole.  The average caretta lays about 100 eggs and that is about what we found in each nest.

One nest even had 2 baby turtles that were still alive and seemed to be stuck in their shells.  Those were kept in a bucket, on wet sand, with a towel over them until it got dark that night and then released to fend for themselves.  They fell asleep like all good babies.  Most reptile babies never see their parents.....

We felt really good that we had saved 2 baby turtles!