Record number of turtles hatch at Mayport during nesting season

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Naval Station Mayport is celebrating a record number of sea turtle nests and hatchlings on their beach this season. October is the end of sea turtle nesting season. 

They’ve counted 54 loggerhead nests with more than 3,000 hatchlings.

The Natural Resources Manager Heather Hahn believes there are multiple factors at play including the fact that the base as a whole has implemented the dark, flat and quiet campaign on their beach and have made efforts to keep the lights down on the entire base during the season.

The waves leave behind small marks of foam and shells. It’s similar to how Hahn tracks the sea turtles.

“Normally what we are looking for at the end of the season is evidence of hatch,” Hahn explained. “We walk the beach the next day and we are looking to see overnight if they hatched out. You’ll see it because the nests have a depression in it and you’ll see these little tracks going towards the ocean.”

Hahn says the last nest was seen just before Hurricane Ian and most likely washed away with the storm, but the turtle season was nonetheless successful.

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“It’s very significant for us,’ Hahn said. “If you look at our historic nesting, about 2 decades ago our average was around 10 nests a season.”

She believes a program implemented in 2017 is paying off. 

“We’ve done a lot at Naval Station Mayport to insure that our beach stays dark. In 2017, we did a major light retrofit to turn all of our lights into wildlife and sea turtle friendly lights,” said Hahn.

She says loggerhead nesting is a big deal for Florida and the increase on their beach could mean the population overall is growing.