JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — Hurricane Erin’s swells are battering the First Coast, with high tides pushing much higher than normal.

The head of the sea turtle program at Jacksonville University says they’re monitoring the impacts of Hurricane Erin’s high tides on sea turtle nests.

“Right now, we’re monitoring all of our nests, seeing what the impacts are,” said Lucas Meers. “We’re not going to restake any nests until the storm fully passes.”

Meers said this has been a bit of a down year along the First Coast, but there are still 80-100 nests in Duval County alone.

“Almost all of our nests had been washed over,” Meers said. “We did lose some of our nests, but that’s to be expected this time of year.”

He said nests can handle water washing over and receding, but if the tide gets so high that it just sits on top, the nest likely won’t survive because it prevents oxygen exchange.

According to Meed, the silver lining to possibly losing some nests is that this happened late in nesting season, meaning many sea turtles have already laid successful nests.

“Each individual sea turtle can lay multiple nests in a season, and she has nests that she lays earlier in the summer, and that’s essentially hedging her bets that some of her nests will be successful, some of her genetics will be passed on,” he said.

Meers said it’ll likely take until the end of October to get an idea of Erin’s impact on sea turtle nesting season.

He mentioned if you do come across any down stakes or see any shells that may have popped up from the sand after the tide goes back down, you can call FWC at *FWC, and they’ll send someone out to address the nest.