2008 Nesting Update

It is still extremely early in the 2008 sea turtle nesting season, but the beaches are starting to get busy with nesting females. By May 16th of last year (2007) Boca Raton’s 5 miles of beaches had 22 Leatherback and 31 Loggerhead nests. Remember in 2007 there was a record high number of Leatherback nests (28) and record low number of Loggerhead nests (398). With the first Leatherback nest of 2008 coming in February, even before the official start of nesting, we hoped to have another record setting year for Leatherbacks. This year we’ve only had 7 Leatherback nests. We do not expect to get many more Leatherback nests this year with Leatherback nesting season coming to a close in 3 weeks. Loggerhead nesting is slightly up this year with 36 nests to date! Any increase in nesting is a positive sign, especially after a record low year last year.