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July 19, 2017

We are so pleased to tell you that our SCCF Adopt-a-Beach initiative has been very successful.  With approximately 44% of our members participating, we have received $4200 in donations.  Because we met the deadlines for the two matching grants, our total contribution is an impressive $10,400.  What an accomplishment for our neighborhood!  Upon hearing CSM’s level of support, Kelly Sloan, Director of Sea Turtle Conservation replied:

"Holy cow! I am completely blown away by the receptiveness and generosity of your neighborhood! It sounds like you have a really nice group that shares your love of coastal wildlife... your neighbors have united in supporting nature in words, action, and deed :)"

Just to refresh your memories, funds generated through the Adopt-A-Beach program go strictly to the sea turtle program and are not co-mingled with SCCF’s general fund. To support sea turtle research and conservation SCCF will use funds for things like:   acquiring and training additional interns for research assistance and data analysis as well as for program supplies, including GPS units, measuring wheels, screening materials to deter predators, nest staking materials, educational signage, fuel for surveys, and a variety of miscellaneous supplies (buckets, mallets, data books, rakes, etc.). SCCF also uses the funds to purchase research supplies such as wildlife cameras to monitor coyote behavior around sea turtle nests.

Here is a turtle update from SCCF intern Heather Shipp on July 14:  It's been a little quieter in terms of sea turtle activity for your neighborhood area, but we did have a false crawl today as well as two other crawls on Tuesday, July 11.  All three of these tracks were from loggerhead sea turtles, and they may have already nested on a different section of beach or they might try again tonight.  Some of the nests in your neighborhood area are starting to approach the end of their incubation period and may hatch sometime within the next week or two.  I will definitely let you know when this happens!

Chateaux Sur Mer's donation was delivered to SCCF today.  Kelly Sloan had just returned from the beach, and was so pleased to receive our donation and to hear about our enthusiasm for “turtle news”.  SCCF will continue to send us turtle updates—especially when nests begin to hatch on our beach!  Thank you very much for your enthusiastic participation in the Adopt-a-Beach program.  SCCF is so grateful for our help and support and we hope everyone in CSM takes pride in our collective accomplishment.

July 31, 2017

Is it possible that some of the sea turtles have heard about our successful Adopt a Beach initiative?  One mama has successfully nested 6 times with three of the nests located on CSM's shoreline!  Here's the latest from Heather Shipp (sent today, 7-31-17):

I hope you are all staying dry!  This storm is keeping us busy.  Although nesting activity is starting to wind down, hatchling season is now in full swing.

A couple of the earlier nests laid in your area were lost due to the tropical storms at the beginning of this season.  However, we had 2 new nests hatch this week along your neighborhood stretch!  One hatched on Tuesday, July 25; it was dug and inventoried immediately due to fire ants starting to invade the nest.  There were 88 hatched shells along with 28 unhatched eggs and 5 live hatchlings in the nest that were later released and successfully made their journey to the water! 

The other nest hatched last Thursday, July 27 and was inventoried yesterday.  This nest produced a total of 95 hatched eggs and only 1 unhatched egg, which is a really stellar hatching success rate!

There was also one new nest laid on Saturday along your neighborhood section of beach!  This brings the total count to 21 nests for the area.  Our night crew encountered this turtle at 4:10 AM while she was digging her egg chamber and recognized her as our tagged MMM081/MMM080 loggerhead!  As you may recall, I included some information about her in my email last week when she laid a nest in your area on July 18. She obviously has strong site fidelity!  She was one of our most encountered turtles, with our crew seeing her a total of 7 times - including 6 nests (3 in your neighborhood area) and 1 false crawl, also in your area.  There was also a 23-day gap towards the end of June where our night crew didn't see her, so it is very likely they missed her laying another nest, which means she's laid 7 nests on Sanibel this season!  This was also the very last turtle our crew encountered as it was their last night out and the tagging project is officially wrapped up for the season.

Thanks for all of your collective effort and enthusiasm for our sea turtles! 

August 14, 2017

Last week, we had 3 more nests hatch in the CSM area!  The first nest hatched on August 5 and was inventoried 3 days later on Tuesday, August 8.  They found 111 hatched eggshells along with 4 other eggs.

There was also an unmarked loggerhead nest, most likely laid in mid-June, which brings the Neighborhood Nest Count up to 22 nests total!  It was found when it hatched at the beginning of last week and was inventoried on Wednesday.  This nest had 100 eggs in it, 89 of which hatched successfully!

The third and final nest from this past week hatched on Thursday, August 10 and was dug that same day due to a lot of fire ants invading the nest. This particular nest was unfortunately hit by several predators, including a coyote that dug into the nest earlier that night.  There were also a lot of crows and birds reported in the area.  Although we can not completely prevent depredation from happening, we can still try and minimize the occurrences through the screens we place over the nests to help prevent coyotes from digging and by keeping garbage off the beach to avoid attracting more crows.  Despite the predators, this nest still had 74 hatched eggshells in addition to 39 live hatchlings that were later released and made their way to the water. 

Thanks for your continued interest!

Also, attached are some photos taken on the public beach next to South Seas.  They show Jewel and Kevin, husband and wife SCCF turtle volunteers as they made their way down the beach checking sea turtle nests.  Jewel inventoried the nest and found 8 unhatched eggs and 80 that hatched.  After cleaning out the nest and doing the inventory, all contents were returned to the nest and then it was covered over.  It was 8:30 am on a Sunday, and this was their third nest.  After that, they had at least one more to check. They are very grateful for CSM's dedication to the Adopt a Beach program! (CSM Editor Note - will try to upload pictures mentioned above)