Happy trails, until we meet again: Walton continues to relocate sea turtles (PHOTOS and VIDEO)

At daybreak dedicated turtle lovers arrived at a nest carefully buried by its mother about six weeks ago, to do what they once thought unthinkable; dig up the eggs and ship them away. 

Sharon Maxwell, Dawn Ratcliff, Jennifer Jones and Joe Burton from Walton County’s Turtle Watch, are hopeful that unearthing the turtles’ nests and Federal Expressing them to the tougher waters of the Atlantic Ocean will give the hatchlings a fighting chance.

The decision to relocate the eggs came in the aftermath of the BP oil spill that dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico at the beginning of nesting season. Both endangered loggerheads and green sea turtles begin life here on the Panhandle

"We want them 'to come back to the Gulf Coast,’ ” Maxwell said, with Ratcliff and Jones finishing the thought in unison, while gently placing the embryos side-by-side on a bed of sand in a Styrofoam cooler bound for the East Coast.

To see a photo gallery of a recent excavation on a Walton County beach, click here.

Every two years female turtles return to where they were born to lay their eggs. The wishful anticipation is that the magnetic imprint on the turtle happens when the female, who only exits the waters when nesting, trails up the beach to lay her load or from the sand surrounding them during incubation and not when the journey from their first protective shell begins.

“That’s why we cover them in the sand and fill a cooler full of sand, because they will fill it up” when the nests arrive on the new beach, Maxwell said.

The white high-quartz-content sand also plays a keen role in determining the hatchlings sex; more males are born in the cooler conditions it creates. For all that is known, there is plenty of guessing left in the game.

During a recent excavation, hatchlings had started “poking their heads out” Maxwell said. They needed to be recovered, caged and allowed to hatch naturally.

“We have had some success already,” Jones said, but added it is too early to tell. 

The Sun accompanied Turtle Watchers on a recue that yielded 76 eggs on Wednesday. The deep hole housing the bale was also lined with fine-strand roots of dune vegetation.

“We finally found them” Maxwell called out to Burton excitedly when the nest was located in the last searched quadrant within the marker. 

Due to the sensitive nature of the experiment, long-time turtle caretakers received additional training from Florida Fish and Wildlife on what methods to use during excavation of the nests.

 “Everything we did was on protocol sheets that say A-B-C-D-E,” Maxwell said.

With any luck, through active protection and dedication to the turtles and their habitat, the species will continue to imprint area beaches for years to come.

While relocations will continue in Walton County, the FWC announced Friday that it will stop relocating sea turtle eggs in Franklin, Gulf counties. Read on for more.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), working with partners from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), announced Thursday that sea turtle nests on the eastern portion of Florida Panhandle beaches would no longer be excavated and transported to the Atlantic coast.

Biologists determined that the risks to hatchlings emerging from beaches and entering waters off the coast of Franklin and Gulf counties have diminished significantly. However, nest excavations will continue west of the St. Joseph Peninsula pending completion of additional risk assessments in those areas. The nest relocations began in June to protect sea turtle hatchlings from potential impacts from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The decision to move nests was made after careful consideration, and the decision to let the nests remain where they are required the same evaluation and weighing of the information,” said Kipp Frohlich, leader of the FWC’s Imperiled Species Section. “Just as we established protocols to move the nests, we developed a set of criteria to help us determine when it would be appropriate to discontinue or scale back nest relocations.”

The FWC conducted aerial flights over the region to locate sargassum, the floating seaweed that provides the primary habitat for the hatchlings.  An FWC vessel took biologists offshore to evaluate and sample the sargussum, and, after careful examination, they discovered no visible signs of oil.

“The patches of sargassum we examined contained abundant life, including important prey species for sea turtle hatchlings,” said FWC biologist Dr. Robbin Trindell.  “It is very good habitat for sea turtle hatchlings.”

Greg Holder, FWC assistant executive director, directed staff to discontinue excavating any nests east of St. Joseph Peninsula in Northwest Florida, while continuing to assess other areas of Florida’s Gulf coast to determine if nests in other counties can be left to emerge naturally.

Soon after the April 20 disaster, biologists and managers from state and federal agencies began planning for the worst-case scenario.

“The prospect of hatchings emerging onto a heavily oiled beach or entering a near-shore oil slick was unacceptable” Frohlich said. “That led to the difficult decision to move all nests in this area. Fortunately, conditions have improved in some areas and some of the beaches were spared, and we can now begin to allow the nests to hatch naturally in many areas.”

As of Aug. 11, 209 nests have been excavated along the Northwest Florida coast, with 148 of the nests coming from Gulf and Franklin counties. The eggs were carefully placed in specially prepared coolers and driven by FedEx trucks to Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s east coast. The coolers remain in a climate-controlled building and are monitored by Innovative Health Application biologists until the hatchlings emerge. Since July 10, more than 6,000 hatchlings – from nests collected from Northwest Florida and Alabama beaches – have been released into the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the nests are from loggerhead sea turtles, which are a threatened species. A few endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle and green sea turtle nests also have been relocated.

Nests on Bald Point, Alligator Point, Dog Island, St. George Island, Little St. George Island, St. Vincent’s Island and St. Joseph Peninsula will be left in place, allowing the hatchlings to emerge naturally.  Nests to the west are still being moved while officials complete their evaluation.  Hatchlings may be at risk in the western Panhandle from beach-cleaning operations, especially those conducted at night. Officials are considering other precautions they could take to safeguard the hatchlings if the nests are left in place on those beaches. Nearly 400 nests remain on Florida’s northwest beaches, and females will continue to come ashore to lay eggs through the rest of August.

For more information on the sea turtle nest relocation, go to [ http://www.fws.gov/northflorida ]www.fws.gov/northflorida. To report sightings of oiled wildlife, call 866-557-1401. For more information on sea turtle conservation, visit [ http://myfwc.com/SeaTurtle ]MyFWC.com/SeaTurtle.