The Palm Spot

08/25/2024

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06/25/2020

Turtle count....

Once again, nest counts provided by data collected by UCF Marine Turtle Reseach Group, Sebastian Inlet State Park and Ecological Research, Inc. for the 20.5 miles of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge.

05/15/2020

The turtles are here 🐢

First compilation of the 2020 season of the sea turtle nests in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. The 20.5 mile stretch of beach designated as the Carr Refuge is monitored in three parts. Sebastian Inlet State Park reports the nesting activity in the 3 miles of the beaches in the State Park. University of Central Florida Marine Turtle Research Group monitors and reports the activity north of the Park to the northern boundary of the Refuge near Melbourne Beach. Envorinmental Associates, Inc. monitors and reports the nesting south of the Park to the southern boundary of Refuge.

Chris Long of UCF noted that the first Green Turtle nest was found on May 12, 2020. Usually the first Green nest is found in the last week of May. This is the second earliest date that a Green nest has been found.

02/07/2020

These whales are amazing!

08/30/2019

Hoping these nests are not disturbed too bad by Dorian...🙏🏻

Nesting for green turtles continued at a high rate while Tropical Storm, now Hurricane, Dorian continues its move to Florida. Less than 100 Loggerhead nests were counted in the past week, but 1460 Green nests were found. The Green nest record seems certain to fall in the current week.

Thanks again to UCF, Sebastian Inlet State Park and Ecological Associates, Inc. for this monitoring effort. Good luck in the week ahead when Dorian disrupts our beach.

08/10/2019

Wow!! Let’s set a record!!

Almost 25,000 sea turtle nests have been counted in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge so far this season. Green turtle nesting ahead of the 2017 count on this date by 2800 nests. So a record could be set this year for Greens. Loggerhead nesting is still going strong with 744 nests in this reporting period.

Chris Long of UCF reports:
"On August 1st, we had our best day of green turtle nesting EVER! On just that day, we counted 383 green turtle nests! The next closest day was August 21st, 2017, which had 366 nests on another turtle-filled morning.

To put these numbers and the amazing green turtle recovery in perspective, think about this for a second: those 383 nests were more than any YEAR from 1982-1989. Amazing! Don't ever let anyone tell you the Endangered Species Act isn't important!"

Thanks again to everyone who is involved in monitoring the turtles and providing this data.

08/10/2019

Happy ! Today we are going to talk about the Blue Land Crab (Cardisoma guanhumi). Although they usually hang out in their burrows, you may have seen these critters crossing A1A recently. That's because we are in the middle of their spawning season! Males will leave their burrows to reproduce with the females, and then the females will carry the eggs externally for two weeks. The eggs will hatch and the larvae will be released into saltwater in order for them to survive, this is what makes the females migrate across A1A and on to the beach! Males are usually blue (pictured), while females can be light gray or white.

Photo: Victoria Escandell

07/16/2019

Big numbers!

The nest counts continue to increase rapidly in the Carr Refuge. 1473 Green nests were counted during the past week in comparison ro 875 Loggerhead nests.

Katrina Phillips of the UCF MTRG reported that "The greens are keeping steady with over 200 nests per day in the (UCF portion of the) Refuge for the past few days, they may end up passing the loggerhead total soon. Time will tell if they will pass the 2017 recored of 15,830!" (Note: in the UCF portion of the Refuge from the Sebastian Inlet State Park boundary north).

The Green turtle photo was taken yesterday at sunrise in the Refuge.

Thanks again to all of the nest monitors who collect and share the data.

07/08/2019

Big numbers this year!!!! Go turtles!

I, Vince Lamb, accept responsibility for the late nest count numbers this week. I thought I would be able to find enough Internet access in the Galapagos Islands to receive the numbers and post the counts, but it didn’t happen. I usually get the weekly counts on Sunday (EAI on Friday), so I should be able to post the current week data tomorrow.

Katrina Phillips of UCF reports: “Green turtles are laying more nests per week at this point than loggerheads, with over 800 loggerhead nests in the last week and over 1000 green nests. We might be near the peak of loggerhead nesting, but the greens are just getting going!”

Loggerhead nest counts are up by almost 800 compared to this date last year (8378 vs. 7605). Green nest counts far exceeded the count on this date of last year (151) and far exceeded 2017 at this date (1347). In 2017, the final Green Turtle nest count exceeded 17,000, a record year for the Carr Refuge.

Big thanks to the staff and volunteers of the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group, Sebastian Inlet State Park and Ecological Associates, Inc. for collecting and sharing this data.

06/17/2019

We're approaching the end of - 7 days highlighting the 7 sea turtle species. Today we celebrate the leatherback sea turtle, which is the largest turtle in the world. Most leatherbacks weigh in around 1000 pounds, but the largest leatherback ever measured was over 2000 pounds!

We had three new leatherback nests in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge this week. As of June 15, our total nest counts in the Brevard county portion of the Refuge are:

Loggerheads - 4,914 nests
Green turtles - 1,100 nests
Leatherbacks - 30 nests
Kemp's ridley - 1 nest

Photo: UCF-MTRG staff member Taylor with a leatherback that nested in the Refuge early in the morning (though they usually nest at night).

06/12/2019

❤️

05/28/2019

Yeah turtles!

The latest nest count numbers from the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. Thanks to the University of Central Florida, Sebastian Inlet State Park and Ecological Associates, Inc. for reporting these counts.

Note that 3,072 Loggerhead nests have been counted. Nighttime turtle walks start in 5 days. Looks like the turtles will be present.