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US- FLorida- Rough Surf is Hard on Hatchlings |
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http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050909/NEWS04/509090347 |
| Date Posted: |
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Sep 9, 05 - 9:53 AM |
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Rough surf is hard on hatchlings
BY JIM WAYMER
FLORIDA TODAY
Tempest-tossed turtle. Anthony Poponi of the Sea Turtle Preservation Society holds one of 200 baby loggerhead sea turtles unearthed by Hurricane Ophelia. Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY
INDIALANTIC - Turtles' flippers were no match for the first legs of Hurricane Ophelia.
Rough surf shoved at least 200 baby loggerhead sea turtles back ashore Thursday, as they tried to cast out from their nests on Brevard County beaches.
Waves and erosion unearthed countless turtle eggs, officials said.
People brought the turtles and unhatched eggs to an Indialantic environmental group, after the eggs and turtles washed up at Patrick Air Force Base and Melbourne Beach.
Beachcombers should expect more of the same as Ophelia hovers near Brevard during the next several days. But the group that rescues the threatened turtles says "leave the eggs alone." You can cover them with sand before calling in the Sea Turtle Preservation Society. But touching the eggs is illegal.
"Some of the hatchlings we're getting in really shouldn't be out of their shell yet," said Anthony Poponi, a board member of the Sea Turtle Preservation Society.
His group is discouraging the public from collecting turtle eggs or digging into the nest, or bringing the eggs to the group's office.
"It does more harm than good," Poponi said.
The group can rescue disoriented, stranded or injured hatchlings, juvenile and adult sea turtles on the beach, but they cannot collect their eggs.
Baby loggerheads struggled to escape large plastic bins at the group's office, as volunteer Nancy Yates sifted through a bin of eggs that beach walkers had brought in to the office, without calling ahead of time.
Volunteers planned to transport the turtles and eggs to a marine science center in Volusia County, which will take the hatchlings out by boat and release them after the storm passes. They'll try to hatch the eggs, but that's unlikely once the eggs have been disturbed.
"Volusia's really getting battered, too," Yates said. "We have so many more nests than they do that we'll probably end up with a lot more exposed."
The washing ashore comes as another blow to sea turtles, which lost many nests to Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.
"This is what happened last year," Yates said.
Contact Waymer at 242-3663 or jwaymer@flatoday.net |
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