Do sea turtles know we’re approaching the height of hurricane season?
Amateur paleontologists in Colombia in 2015 found fossils of one ancient ancestor of today’s sea turtles dating to 120 million years old, way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. So the idea that these mysterious, awe-inspiring, primordial creatures have adapted their nesting behavior to avoid extinction is not a huge stretch of the imagination.
When residents in the Aquarina Beach and Country Club area began seeing huge sea turtles tearing up the dunes and uprooting the carefully planted rows of sea oats behind oceanfront homes, they wondered what was going on. Old wives’ tales say the turtles somehow sense when we’re about to have a hurricane, so they lay their precious eggs way up into the dunes to protect their progeny from being washed away. The truth, according to scientists, is almost as fascinating as the lore.
Two things we know: This bizarre activity occurs in late July and August – which also happens to be when hurricane season kicks into full swing – and the oddity doesn’t happen every year.
The reason why the dune-wrecking stands out to locals this time of year is because it’s different from the typical mid-beach nesting we get used to seeing in the late spring or early summer.
Celeste McWilliams, a certified sea turtle educator who runs the school programs at the Barrier Island Center south of Melbourne Beach, had some perfectly good explanations.
The turtles that mate in the spring and enjoy their peak nesting season earlier in the summer are loggerheads, McWilliams said. Many of the loggerhead hatchlings have already sprung from their shells and started their own amazing journeys into the sea. And though they still participate in the land grab for a protected spot, the loggerheads are not the aggressive dune-wreckers we’re seeing down near Aquarina. Green sea turtles are the culprits.
“Greens are in the prime of their nesting season right now,” McWilliams said, adding that the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, which encompasses 20.5 miles of beach from about Coconut Point Park in Melbourne Beach to just south of Golden Sands Park near Windsor in Indian River County, has been seeing more than 200 new nests laid every single night the past week or so. “In the seven days prior to Thursday, August 11, we had 1,830 nests counted in the refuge,” McWilliams said.
“And though all sea turtles go as far up the beach as they can to lay their eggs, the green sea turtles are known for going up onto the dunes more than the loggerheads.” she said.
McWilliams said there’s a nest about every 4 1/2 linear feet throughout the refuge right now. From a logistical standpoint, that’s pretty crowded. The green sea turtles showing up late to the party are not only savvy but considerate for heading up into the dune to stake their claim without inadvertently digging up a sister turtle’s nest.
They are also the largest species of hard-back turtles, with adults growing to about 3-feet long and weighing up to 350 pounds, so they come in like a wrecking ball and don’t really care that those sprigs of sea oats were placed there by humans (at the taxpayers’ expense) to help stabilize the dune. Their eggs must survive for the next two treacherous months of hurricane season before they are ready to hatch.
So, did the green sea turtles learn by trial and error to “go deep” into the end zone to build their nests? Anything is possible over 120 million years.
