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Sea Turtle Conservation in Florida is Hard · How To Protect The Ocean

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Sea turtle conservation in Florida is facing some
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challenges. For decades, conservation efforts have helped
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these iconic animals rebound from the brink of extinction. But
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as is often the case with wildlife conservation, new threats
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have emerged. This time, it's something we're all a little familiar
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with, called climate change. We're going to talk about how the increase in
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hurricane intensity and sea level rise are
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impacting the conservation of sea turtles and explore what
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we can do to help with this conservation. On this episode of
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the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, let's start the show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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your host, Andrew Lord, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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taking action. On today's episode, we're going to be discussing something
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pretty cool, sea turtles. Sea turtles are always huge. hit
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when we talk about conservation of marine life. They
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are an iconic species. They're something that we want to fall
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in love with. We do fall in love with and they've actually spurred one
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of the biggest campaigns against plastic pollution of
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the straw, especially and has resulted in
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the banning of plastic straws for better or for worse. What people like
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or don't like sea turtles. caused it to happen. So we're
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going to talk about that on today's episode. Before we do, if you are new
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to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast and this company Speak Up
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find out the latest in news, the latest episodes that
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we have out, as well as the latest job advertisements so
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that you can dedicate your entire career to protecting
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the ocean. Let's go to speakupforblue.com, Forge Last Newsletter. Let's
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get into the show. Let's start with some good news. Over the last few decades, Florida
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sea turtles have been a conservation success story. You don't
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always hear that coming out of in Florida with in regards to the
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environment, but thanks to efforts like protecting nesting areas,
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beach cleanups, and educational programs, the number of sea turtle
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hatchings has soared. And I can be one to attest
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for sea turtle nests being protected because
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I have a story that I tell, I've told it quite a bit, but if you're new
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here, this is the first time you've heard. But one of the things that my daughter Jade
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and I have shared over time, when she was actually
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younger, she doesn't remember this as much as I do, she was only nine
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months old. We went to Florida, we were down near in the Miami area,
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and we were staying in a hotel. This hotel was right on the beach, and
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she got up a little early, she was nine months old, and I didn't want my other daughter
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and my wife to wake up, so I took her down to the beach, we watched the sunrise along
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the beach. It's like, what is a better way to spend time with
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your daughter. So we sit down on the beach, we watch the sunrise, and as
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the sun was rising, we can see a mound of
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sand that's right in front of us, about 10 feet away. And I was like, oh my gosh, I
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think this is a sea turtle nest, because I can see the tracks going from
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the ocean and then back into the ocean, almost as if they were just going over each
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other. It was quite a large sea turtle. I still don't know what sea turtle it was,
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but I said, okay, something has got to be done here, because I know in Florida, they
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protect sea turtles and the sea turtle nest. So I go back to
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the hotel, The first thing I did, I emailed the sea turtle
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listserv, and I said, hey, what happens if
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I think there's a sea turtle nest on the beach? They said, contact
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Fish and Wildlife, or just tell the hotel they will contact Fish and
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Wildlife. So I contact Fish and Wildlife. Florida's Fish and Wildlife crew
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come out. They protect the sea turtle nest. And my other daughter, Taya, who was
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about two or three at the time, she was down there, and she was
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protecting the nest. She was taking any kind of plastic off in and around
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the area. I wouldn't let her go in the barricaded area, because that's what it was. It was barricaded. And
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so she would take it off. So we can attest, my family can attest, like
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by seeing it, how well these sea turtles are protected, which
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is great to see. And we've seen a rise in the number of
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sea turtle nests that have had, and probably hundreds of thousands of
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sea turtle nests and hatchlings have actually hatched every
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year and they come back. And we've seen it not only in Florida, but all
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the way up to Georgia and all the way up to the Carolinas, which is kind
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of cool to see. So. That's always great. However, the 2024 hurricane
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season showed us just how vulnerable this progress is. This
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year's season started earlier and was more intense than ever.
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Hurricane Beryl, a Category 5 storm, made landfall in July,
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the heart of the sea turtle nesting season. Then came Hurricane Debbie,
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which destroyed hundreds of nests along Florida's Gulf Coast. So
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think about it. A mother turtle comes ashore, painstakingly digs
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a nest. You have to think about how hard it is for a sea
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turtle to get out of the water and to move its body up the
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beach, get there, dig out a nest, and then lay,
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you know, dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of like hundreds
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of eggs. Weeks later, a storm surge washes it all away.
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For a conservationist, it's devastating. These storms don't
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just destroy the nests, they also erode beaches, leaving less
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space for turtles to nest in the future. Dr. Jake Lasala,
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a sea turtle biologist, put it bluntly, climate change is
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impacting our nesting beaches whether we like it or
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not. So why does this matter? Sea turtles play a
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crucial role in marine ecosystems. They maintain the
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health of seagrass beds and coral reefs, which in turn
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support countless marine species. Losing sea turtles could
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ripple across the ocean ecosystem. Sea turtles travel, not
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just locally, but they travel across oceans.
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One of the first tagged sea turtles that was very well documented
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by Wallace J. Nichols, may he rest in peace, noticed that the sea
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turtle was tagged in Baja, California, and it went to Japan.
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That's how far it traveled. So these sea turtles are not only
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just staying locally and protecting coral reefs locally and
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seagrasses, maintaining their health and taking out unhealthy seagrasses
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by eating them and so forth, but they're traveling from place to place to
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place across the Pacific, across the Atlantic. They're
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traveling all over the place and they're stopping off in certain spots to
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feed, right, to take care and protect those areas. We
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just don't realize it. And it's really interesting because there
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have been studies. Dr. Nathan Robbins, a friend of the podcast and a friend of mine,
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has come on this podcast and talked about sort of what the
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little critters on the shells have actually, where
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they've actually been. You can tell where the sea turtles have been based on
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the epibiotes who are on the sea turtle shell.
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right? They actually pick them up as they go from place to place. Cause they sit down,
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they rest, they'll eat some things and things grab on or,
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or, you know, stick on the shells just as they go. And they travel
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with them wherever they go. Kind of a cool thing, but you
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know, they travel in many places and they become very important, not only just
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locally, but internationally as well. So what can we do to
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help? So protecting sea turtles from impacts on climate change is
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no small task, but there are some steps you can
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take. Support beach conservation programs. Many organizations work
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tirelessly to protect nesting sites, restore eroded beaches,
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and relocate vulnerable nests. The
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Loggerhead Marine Life Center is one of those institutes in Jupiter, Florida that
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help nesting sea turtles that help sick sea
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turtles and make sure that they get better and release them. There are many organizations
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along Florida's coast, whether it be the Gulf Coast, the Atlantic Coast, or
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even up the coast all the way up to the Carolinas. You
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can find those organizations and you can
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help support those by donating directly to them. they are
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very happy to take your donations because they put in so much work. It
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takes resources, it takes people to put in place to
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make sure that these sea turtle beaches are protected and to make sure that
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we are monitoring and gathering data on them. They're very,
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very important and I highly recommend that you donate to them. So that's
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the first one. Number two, advocate for climate action. Reducing
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greenhouse gas emissions can help slow intensification of hurricanes. That's
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an individual thing, but it's also a bigger thing by pressuring your
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government representative. You can do this at home. You can do
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this individually as well as part of your community to say, hey, let's
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lower our greenhouse gas footprint and let's try and
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do alternative things. So if you can afford it, get
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an EV or a hybrid, something that will allow you to
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depend more on electricity rather than gasoline.
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Those are probably better in the long run. If you can't afford
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that, that's okay. Work up to afford. They're getting more and more affordable
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now, and they're getting easier to move around cities and
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towns and countrysides because they're putting more charging stations in
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place, as well as you can charge at home. It is a little bit more of
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a cost up front, but overall, I have an EV
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and not paying for gasoline has saved me a ton. Plus, just
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a little secret here. You don't have to bring it in for oil changes. You
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don't have to bring in an EV for to handle all of these like
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the transmission or there is none right you have a battery and they
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last a long time so check that out highly recommend it but
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also make sure that it fits within your budget and within your lifestyle it's very
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important but you can also get you know heat converters that
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are fairly inexpensive and there are probably incentives
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for the government to buy them. And so you can get credit, you can
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get money back. Those are really important too. I'm actually looking into a
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heat exchanger this year, in 2025, to see if we can lower our
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natural gas dependence. 3. Get involved locally. Volunteer with organizations
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or support them financially to help sustain their work. that
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are working on protecting beaches, protecting the
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environment that sea turtles are in, like coral reefs, sea grasses, and
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even mangroves. And you can help them protect through policies, actually,
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through advocacy, through working with government, not just physically
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being there. You can do both, or you can do one or the other, but there are a lot of
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different ways that you can protect these organizations.
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And I think it's an important aspect. And I think it's an important aspect
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to think about when we are trying to do something good for
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these organizations. Any type of study or any type
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of organization that is not only working policy, but also there could be some
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that are tagging that are looking at ways to gather data
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on sea turtles to work with local communities with
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sea turtles, especially in Central America. You
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see a lot of organizations working with communities to take away their
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dependence on poaching and trying to get eggs and trying to
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eat sea turtles and working more on ecotourism or other ways
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of making income so that the sea turtles are protected in those areas.
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So it's an important aspect to protect that. Going up against
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climate change is difficult. I'm not going to lie. It's not something
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that is easily attained. The goal is not always achieved.
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Depending on the governments, and we know in the U.S. and in Canada
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in a year, it'll be even more difficult because there will be
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a new government, right, a new administration that cares less
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about climate change and more about fossil fuels. That's
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going to be a big challenge. But it doesn't mean you stop advocating for
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climate change reduction and climate change action. It is what
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we need to do. This story is a reminder of the challenges climate
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change brings to ocean conservation, including
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the other story that it reminds me of is the story that I put a couple
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of episodes ago where we talked about the MERS birds. that
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went from a population of 8 million to a population of
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4 million. That wasn't directly affected by climate change, but are starving
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because their prey are no longer at the plentiful numbers
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that they need to be at. So they are starving because of
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climate change, because of the blob, because of sea surface temperature, sea
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surface temperature increase. You can check out that story right up here
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that I'll link to in this video and in this podcast. so
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that you can get access to it as well and you can watch it. This is not
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an isolated problem just with sea turtles. We are losing
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beaches because of sea level rise. We are losing beaches because
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of increased storms like hurricanes and the intensity of storms. But
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we are also at the mercy of climate change
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and the consequences that come from that, right? Storm surges, loss
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due to erosion of habitat, all these things. It's
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not something that is easily dealt with. Sea turtles
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have been around for millions of years, surviving countless of challenges.
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So with your help, they can help survive this one too. And I
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feel, and I know, I don't just feel, I know that we can get
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around this climate change. I know that we can not only adapt, but we
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can reduce our greenhouse gases. It just takes us all
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to do that. But that's it for today's episode. I would love to hear what you think of
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sea turtle protection, sea turtle conservation. If you have any kind of experience in
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it, I would love to hear from you. Hit me up on, on Instagram at
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HowToProtectTheOcean. I'd love to hear from you. That's at HowToProtectTheOcean on
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Instagram. And of course, if you want to find out more information, you
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can subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit that notification bell
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so that you don't miss any of our episodes that we drop Monday, Wednesday, and
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Fridays. And that's it for today's episode of the How
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to Project the Ocean podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you have a great day. I'm
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your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.