Sea Turtles of NSB
New Smyrna Beach is a quaint beach town with lots of fun stuff going on, but it is also a haven for nature lovers. Walking down the beach at night and happening across a huge mother turtle laboring to lay her eggs is an impressive site, only topped by strolling by a few months later and finding the new hatchlings scurrying for the relative safety of the sea.
At NSBGuide, we have witnessed both events and they are inspiring and exciting. I recently attended a Sea Turtle program at Canaveral National Seashore (CNS), where I learned a bit more about our annual visitors.
Along the coastline of Canaveral National Seashore, they see an average of 5,000 nests per year, and in NSB proper there are usually a few hundred more. Why the huge differences in numbers? Light – the turtles look to nest in the dark areas and the hatchlings have a better chance of survival on unlighted beaches. This area is noted as the second most vital sea nesting location in the country.
There are three types of turtles typically found on our beaches: Loggerheads, Green Turtles and Leatherbacks, and occasionally we will see reports of a rare, and probably lost, Kemps Ridley.
Cool Sea Turtle Facts
- Amazingly, sea turtles have an “inner-GPS” that guides them back to the original nest where they were hatched decades earlier.
- It is estimated that only about 1 out of 1,000 hatchlings reaches maturity.
- The turtles biggest predators are… raccoons – who love to steal their eggs. As hatchlings, turtles have to run a gauntlet of birds, crabs and small mammals before they reach the relative safety of the surf, and as adults, the primary predators are sharks.
- Most nests are made in June and July, but we have one right near our house that wasn’t established until September.
- The turtles gender is dependent on the incubation temperature. The warmer the temperature, the more likely the baby turtles are female. Yup, that is right, the male turtles are at the bottom from the day they are born.
Loggerhead Turtle
These are the most common visitors to our beach, and they are a threatened species, yet we see a few thousand in this area every year. The female starts producing eggs at about 17 and continues off and on for the rest of their life (up to 60 years). The average adult is about 3 feet long and tips the scales at 300+ pounds. They typically eat smaller sea creatures off of the ocean floor.
Green Turtle
Interestingly, these visitors to our sandy shores do not come every year. Due to different environmental factors, there are years where we only see a few hundred, and others where there are many thousands. As an example, there were nearly 8,000 in 2017 (mostly at CNS) and less than 300 this year. As a bit of good news, this species is no longer Endangered in the US, due to successful turtle conservation efforts. Adult Green Turtles also weigh-in around 300 pounds, and they are herbivores.
Leatherbacks
These gentle giants are the largest living turtle, and this endangered species is a rare sight on area beaches. There are rarely more than a dozen nests per year, with the majority of those located at CNS, so the chance of encountering a nesting Leatherback is extremely rare. They check in at over 1,000 pounds and are the only sea turtle without the typical bony shell that we associate with turtle. They eat jellyfish, which sadly look a lot like plastic bags. This confusion has becoming a leading killer of these amazing creatures as plastic continues to pollute our seas.
Kemp’s Ridley
The NSB area is not a natural nesting area for this rare turtle, but occasionally we see a couple on our shores. One guess is that released turtles from our stranding programs, begin to associate the beach where they were released as their original birth place. Sounds feasible to me.
What Can You Do?
- Limit light pollution near our beaches and use shields, LEDs and amber lights where you do need lighting.
- Clean up your garbage: there are hundreds of reasons to do this, but trash in the water and on the beach has a proven detrimental impact on sea turtles. Better yet, support this awesome group: KeepNSBClean
- Smooth out and cover holes in the sand. The females can likely navigate these obstacles, but the hatchlings haven’t a chance.
- Keep pets and kids away from turtle nest areas. I walked by a nest a few months ago and saw two sets of little footprints throughout the nest. The kids might not know better, but the parents should!
NSB Insider Tips
If you want to improve your chances of seeing a nesting female or the emergence of hatchlings do these two things. Walk the sections of the beach furthest from the brightly lit condos and nightlife, and walk closer to the water and look for the turtles’ tracks. It is a much better way to look than stumbling around in the deep sand near the dunes.
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