Conservation Crews Work Around the Clock Saving Sea Turtles

Sea turtle crew excavates a turtle nest.

Protecting sea turtle nesting habitats is no walk in the park, says Sierra Ciciarelli, outreach and assistant field manager of Broward County who oversees the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program.

Ciciarelli has been working with NSU teams to monitor sea turtle nesting activity along Broward County’s 24 miles of beaches for five seasons. Each nesting season runs from March 1 through October 31.

“Our most visible crew is our morning crew,” Ciciarelli said. “They are out on the beaches seven days a week during the entire season. We begin our surveys a half hour before sunrise and follow the high tide line on the beach with the help of our ATVs.”

And there is also an evening crew, she said, responsible for monitoring restraining cages that they install in Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale to protect turtle nests in areas with significant light pollution.

“Without these cages, hatchlings typically disorient landward due to the high number and brightness of the surrounding properties alongside the beach,” she said. “When hatchlings disorient, they can find their way into unsafe places such as pools, storm drains, and roads rather than the ocean.”

Because of their hours, the nighttime crews are much more incognito compared to the morning team, but just as important, said Ciciarelli.

This sea turtle season yielded almost 3,000 turtle nests, more than 800 of which were on Fort Lauderdale Beach. There are only seven species of sea turtles and three of them nest on Broward County beaches: loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles. On average, there are about 140,000 hatchlings each season in Broward County.

Ciciarelli and her crews also work to foster sea turtle conservation by connecting the public to the ecosystems around them, through outreach events that let the public witness sea turtle crawls, nests, and hatchlings make their way to the ocean.

Ciciarelli also offers these sea turtle-conscious tips:

• If staying in a beachfront hotel or condo, please close the curtains at night and do your best to keep lights off so that way it does not illuminate the windows.
• If you are walking the beach at night, please do not disturb sea turtles that are nesting or hatching.
• Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints.
• Don’t litter. Sea turtles, along with many other animals, can mistake litter for food.
• Avoid using flashlights. Sea turtles are sensitive to short wavelengths of light (longer wavelengths, or the red spectrum, are considered sea-turtle friendly).
• The 24/7 Sea Turtle Emergency Line is 954-328-0508.

Nesting continues to increase

Ciciarelli shared that nestings have been increasing in Broward County since the start of the Conservation Program in 1981.​ Here are the numbers over the past few years: