- March 29, 2024
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During this year’s sea-turtle season, which runs from May to October, Longboat Observer photographer Rachel S. O’Hara teamed up with Mote Marine scientists and volunteers, as well as Longboat Key Turtle Watch volunteers, to get an upclose look of what turtle season is like on the Key.
The first meeting of the season for Mote volunteers drew hundreds of people, who learned how to properly find and mark a nest and how to take care of the hatchlings without endangering their well-being in the process. Mote has approximately 300 beach-monitoring volunteers.
During the summer, an early-morning walk with Longboat Key Turtle Watch volunteers (of which there are 35 who patrol the Manatee County side of the island) resulted in marking several freshly laid nests. The group also got a distress call about a turtle that needed help making its way to water.
Sunset turtle-nest excavations give members of the public a chance to learn about sea turtles and their nests; a few hatchlings that needed help getting out of their nests were released into the Gulf of Mexico.
Mote’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital nurses turtles back to health and even offers them physical therapy.
This season, 1,284 loggerhead turtle nests were counted in Sarasota and Manatee counties — 275 were documented on Longboat Key.