As the gentle giants of the sea return to our shores for their annual nesting season (May – October), let’s delve into the fascinating world of these magnificent creatures and learn how we can play a role in their conservation efforts.

Join us as we explore everything you need to know about the nesting, hatching, safety, and protection of these endangered marine marvels – because it’s sea turtle time on Amelia Island!

Pack it Up

After you’ve enjoyed the perfect beach setup, please take down and remove your tents, beach chairs, umbrellas and the like (see Nassau County Ordinance 2016-06). Nesting turtles are sea creatures who crawl onto land with great difficulty (they often weigh around 200 pounds) and they can’t turn or go around large objects left in their path. Turtles can also become trapped underneath your items and hatchlings can be confused by them when they emerge. If you have trash and leftover food, please make sure it leaves as well since foxes, raccoon, and other animals are drawn to them and often find sea turtle eggs to prey on along the way.

Fill the Holes

Digging in the sand is one of the essential summer pleasures, but, when you’re done, please fill them in. Nesting mother turtles and their hatchlings can easily fall in and become trapped. Extra good deed points for filling in holes you come across at the end of the afternoon (Perhaps make this a contest for the kids while you pack up?)​

Follow Lighting Rules

Lighting near the shore can cause hatchlings to become disoriented and wander inland, where they often die of dehydration or predators. Hatchlings have an innate instinct that leads them in the brightest directions, which normally is the moonlight reflecting off the ocean. Using wildlife-friendly lighting helps reduce harmful effects of artificial light on nesting beaches. Florida defines it with three key rules: keep it low, keep it shielded, and keep it long—ideally applied after removing any unnecessary decorative lights. Here’s the breakdown:

• Keep It Low – Use low mounting heights, wattages, and lumens to reduce visibility from the beach, prevent excessive lighting, and help save money, energy, and sea turtles.
• Keep it Shielded – A shielded fixture uses opaque material to block light from being seen from the beach while directing more light to the ground, where it’s needed most.
• Keep it Long – Because sea turtles are more attracted to shorter wavelengths and less to longer ones, it’s important to choose true long-wavelength lights—typically amber, orange, or red.

While these issues are always being addressed, other lighting sources have taken a back seat and are becoming frequently more problematic to the turtles – those are Flashlights and Cell Phone lights. Please leave them at home and enjoy your nightly beach experience the old-fashioned way – by the light of the moon.

See For Yourself

Attend a nest excavation conducted by Amelia Island Sea Turtle Watch, dedicated to preserving and protecting the endangered sea turtles that are a valuable part of the natural heritage of Amelia Island. Three days after a nest has emerged and hatchlings have crawled to the sea, permitted volunteers from AISTW “excavate” the nest. This is simply an inventory of all the remaining nest contents: unhatched eggs, shards (empty egg shells), dead hatchlings, and yes, sometimes even live hatchlings. If live hatchlings are found, they will release them for you to see. Everything else is returned to the nest to be left as it was. Excavations begin in early-mid July and continue until all the nests have hatched and emerged. Check the continually updated excavation schedule. While there is no guarantee that you will see a hatchling, you will come away with new information and an appreciation for this natural wonder.

Take a Step Back

Leave nesting turtles and hatchlings to emerge and crawl on their own. Enjoy the experience and remember it always! Sea turtles that survive and grow to adulthood go on far-ranging migrations over the course of many years, but they often return to the exact beach where they were born to lay their own eggs.

Learn more about the plight of the sea turtles by visiting the Sea Turtle Conservancy, and Amelia Island Sea Turtle Watch. For more tips and information on code enforcement and procedure, check here.