Page 72 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #10

SEA TURTLE NESTS

efore sunrise in May, the
sand of any beach on Anna
Maria Island isn’t warm. In
fact, it’s cold enough to make
my toes go numb if I were
strolling barefoot. But that’s
Bnot allowed for a group of
beach walkers out on the first of the month
– shoes with soles are required. They aren’t
your average beachcombers, either. They’re
carrying mobile phones and tablets, but
they’re looking down at the sand not their
devices, searching for an impermanent
treasure – the flipper trails left by sea turtles.
Zipping up and down the shore on an all-
terrain vehicle (ATV) is a woman who stops
to give the walkers water, answer questions
and snap pictures. She’s also wearing shoes
and has the same high-visibility t-shirt that
they all have on.
Meet the conservation volunteers of Anna
Maria Island Turtle Watch. Suzi Fox, the
charity’s director and unofficial cheerleader,
is the one driving the ATV. The volunteer Flipper trails at
walkers monitor sea turtle nests along part dawn are the sign
of the 19km shoreline of Anna Maria Island that a loggerhead
has laid her eggs
(AMI), which lies off Florida’s southwest
overnight in a nest
coast, just south of Tampa Bay. This scene on a Florida beach.
repeats daily during the nesting season, from
1 May to 1 November. The primary mission
of AMI Turtle Watch is to protect the nests of Initial reluctance turned into a passion for thunder, everybody stays off the beach until
five species of sea turtle that use the beaches saving turtles. Indeed, it seems every AMI we know the coast is clear.”
as an incubator: loggerhead, green turtle, volunteer is motivated by a highly personal Walkers will don waterproofs and go out
leatherback, hawksbill and Kemp’s ridley. reason for taking on this time-consuming in the rain, but safety is a top priority. The
job of protector. Conversations are peppered coordinator who schedules the volunteers is
A passion for saving turtles with lingo they use to describe their work: available to provide assistance throughout
Since its inception in 1982, the grass-roots ‘walkers’ hit the beach in pairs to monitor every walk. Everyone is required to call their
effort has been a resounding success. By their assigned 1.5km portion of coastline coordinator when they find a new nest, if
September 2018, it had documented 8,386 every day in the season. They’re ‘on the sand’ anything unusual happens or if they need
turtle activities, protected 4,942 nests and 20 minutes before sunrise and collect ‘data help (heat exhaustion is a real possibility).
their contents (a total of 312,402 eggs), and points’ on new nests and check the status of When Pete Gross retired from his
ushered 282,336 hatchlings into Tampa Bay existing ones. They also note ‘false crawls’ computer science career in 2008, he and his
and the Gulf of Mexico. Considering that just – tracks left by a female turtle that comes wife dived into sea-turtle volunteering that
one in 1,000 sea turtles will live to adulthood, ashore but doesn’t nest. same year. Both started out as walkers. Now
this is an important contribution to the global “I have 117 people who work for me every he’s a coordinator for two sections of beach
effort to prevent extinction. Of the seven species day for free. They love what they do,” Suzi near his home. “It’s my job to go out on the
of sea turtle, two are Critically Endangered, says. “I get up at 4:30 every morning and go beach and collect the data for the state,” he
one is Endangered and three are Vulnerable; straight for the weather. Everybody watches says. “We try to identify turtle nests and put
the final species, the flatback, is classed as their email to make sure it’s safe. If we hear four-foot stakes in the sand around them
‘Data deficient’ so, although they don’t know
for sure, it could be in trouble, too.
Suzi credits the turtles with providing her
salvation. “In 1990 I was severely depressed
because my mother had passed away. With
her gone, I was hiding out – not getting “In 1990 I was severely
out of bed,” she tells me. “A friend who depressed because my mother
did the turtle watch came over and said,
‘Come on, you get out and walk with me in had passed away. Turtle watch
the mornings.’ That’s what I did, and I can
honestly say it probably saved my life.” probably saved my life.”

72 BBC Wildlife October 2018