As evening light retreats and temperatures drop, the last of this year’s nesting sea turtles are making their crawls along Southern beaches. All across the region from March to the end of October, an encouraging number of female turtles kicked up sand and left behind clutches of leathery, ping-pong-ball-shaped eggs—including, in the nation’s sea turtle capital of Florida, a record number of critically endangered Kemp’s ridleys.
Home to five species of sea turtles, the Sunshine State offers ample coastline for the marine reptiles to foster the next generation. Endangered loggerheads are the most prolific egg layers in Florida, and the data is looking pretty good for the scuted swimmers; upwards of 100,000 loggerhead nests have been recorded so far this year. But the increase in Kemp’s ridley nests is an especially hopeful sign. While the tiny turtles are found in much greater numbers in Texas, the twenty-four nests found in Florida—an all-time high, and fourteen more than in 2023—suggest that efforts to protect the imperiled species may be paying off. (The turtles used to be abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, but their numbers plummeted in part due to accidental entanglements in fishing gear.)
Across the South, sea turtles generally had a good year. Georgia reported 2,500 loggerhead nests, a significant increase over the state’s thirty-five-year average. And in Texas, Kemp’s ridleys were abundant at 340 nests—only thirteen behind the record. Other states, like the Carolinas, were on par with egg-laying expectations.
But in a year filled with hurricanes, including the deadliest to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina, sea turtles felt the effects. In Georgia, for example, only 46 percent of eggs hatched—a 15 percent decrease from the ten-year average. Storms can dump intense rain and drown incubating eggs under the sand, says Catherine Eastman, the Sea Turtle Hospital program manager at the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory. And for the tiny turtles that have already hatched, the exacerbated turbidity from these events can push them back on shore. “The sun will cook these little guys if they’re on the shore in the middle of the day,” she says.
In other words, this year has looked a lot like the big picture for sea turtles: optimistic, but tempered by serious challenges. Their populations have rebounded immensely since their near-extinction in the mid–twentieth century (nesting Kemp’s ridleys once numbered as low as two hundred). But sea level rise and extreme heat could jeopardize the success of future nesting seasons. As Eastman explains, “We need high, dry, and sandy beaches for turtles to lay eggs. We’re seeing higher than high tides, and they can’t just go more landward because that’s usually met with houses or seawalls.” And for the hatchlings that do successfully find a safe, sandy spot, “temperature plays an extremely important role in the sex of hatchlings. The mnemonic is cool dudes, hot chicks. We’re also seeing warmer beaches and hotter sand, and they’re not even emerging.”
Eastman hopes people will realize the interests of sea turtles and humans aren’t all that different. Making coastlines more resilient to the dangers of extreme weather and climate change will not only help turtles but also the millions of Southerners who call the coast home. “What’s good for turtles is good for us,” she says.
