PANAMA CITY BEACH — Turtle walkers from the area and turtle walker-wannabes gathered in Bay County earlier this month to train for this coming turtle season.
Turtle season runs in Florida from March to October, but cooler waters and sand in the Northwest Florida Panhandle pushes back turtle season here to May 1 through Aug. 31.
The state is a nesting home to five different species of turtles: the loggerhead, green, leatherback, Kemp’s Ridley and hawksbill. The loggerhead is considered threatened, and the rest are on the endangered list.
Ninety percent of the loggerheads’ nesting takes place in Florida, and a majority of those nests are in Northwest Florida.
“We are the principal stewards for this species,” said Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Anne Meylan.
The Endangered Species Act regulates and directs tracking of nesting sea turtles that are threatened or endangered, and walkers or trackers must undergo training to take part in the activity; otherwise, it would be against the law.
Each year, the agency recruits volunteer trackers willing to walk the beach and keep track of the number of turtles that come ashore and nest, as well as help determine the species of the turtle.
Though Northwest Florida documents mostly loggerheads coming onshore, the area also occasionally sees a green or Kemp’s Ridley nest.
Last year was a banner year for nesting, with 77,963 nests marked in the state. One in 17 loggerheads nests is in state parks.
Walkers who help in the tracking go out before sunrise. They search for tracks and identify them via their trained eye or email pictures of the tracks to their coordinator for identification.
The loggerhead’s gait leaves an alternating paisley pattern from the sea up to the dunes. Parallel, even tracks indicate a green. The loggerhead will drop its head, with which it helps push the sand.
The green has a long tail that leaves its own track through the sand between its flippers.
Loggerheads tend to be sensitive to disturbances and impediments, and 50 percent of the time after they come ashore, they won’t nest but go back out to sea.
All of the species tend to nest in the dark of night, except for the rare Kemp’s Ridley, which often can be found nesting in mid-afternoon. The Kemp’s Ridley is smaller, round and gray, and their gait also leaves a wavy, alternating pattern in the sand, similar to the loggerhead.
The hatchlings that emerge from these turtles’ nests and survive will return in 30 years to the same spot they were hatched to lay their own eggs.
In Florida, 57 beaches participate in the tracking process. The Panhandle has fewer participating beaches than any other area in Florida.
