Page 70 - Panama City Living Magazine September-October 2019

SSummertime is the busiest time for Northwest Florida’s beaches. Hundreds of thousands of visitors enjoy sun, warm water, and the white sandy shorelines of Panama City Beach, providing a boost to local businesses and the economy. The high chance of encoun- tering wildlife up-close during a stay on Panama City Beach is especially exciting and adds to the allure of our area. But sum- mertime is also nesting season for sea turtles that, in addition to being exposed to their natural predators, are easily disturbed or even harmed by lights, litter, and abandoned recreational equip- ment (tents, chairs, umbrellas) left on the beach at night.
The Sea Turtle Conservancy advises that an estimated 90 per- cent of all sea turtle nesting in the United States takes place on Florida’s beaches, stressing how critical it is that residents and visitors alike do their part to ensure that sea turtles have a safe and successful nesting season. The majority of sea turtle nesting in Florida occurs between May 1 and October 31.
Four sea turtle species are known to nest on Northwest Flori- da’s beaches—the most common are loggerhead turtles. Green, leatherback, and Kemp’s ridley turtles nest on our local beaches as well, but very rarely. Crawling ashore, mostly at night, a turtle’s body and flipper size will often determine the size and depth of the nest it makes, a process that can take several hours. Leather- backs can measure up to 6 feet and loggerhead and green turtles
can measure up to 4 feet. Kemp’s ridleys, the most endangered sea turtle, are also the smallest, measuring around 2 feet.
A local non-profit organization that has been actively protecting and surveying sea turtles for the last 30 years is the Panama City Beach Turtle Watch. A big part of their work consists of training, collecting data in accordance with strict guidelines by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The public mostly gets to see the group during their field work, early in the morn- ings and during emergency response or nest excavations. A day in the life of a Turtle Watch sur-
veyor often begins at sunrise, patrolling the 18-mile stretch of beach that falls under their jurisdiction in Bay County, be- tween St Andrews State Park and Camp Helen State Park.
When the tracks of a crawling turtle are found in the sand, the next step is to locate the nest and rope it off with signs advising passers-by to give the area a wide berth. Tur- tle Watch surveyors carefully
70 • September–October 2019 • www.PanamaCityLiving.com