Boating safety tips shared after struck sea turtle recovered off Longboat

Earlier this month, the body of a loggerhead sea turtle washed ashore into a residential harbor off Sarasota Bay.

Mote Marine scientists’ investigation of the body showed multiple boat strike wounds on the rear of the shell. Sadly, it’s not an uncommon occurrence, and Mote Marine stranding investigations program manager Gretchen Lovewell said the amount of human-caused turtle encounters the program has seen have increased from about 25% to 38%. Boat propellers are a common culprit, and those encounters don’t end well.

“Unfortunately, almost every turtle that gets hit by a boat is going to die,” Lovewell said.

Lovewell said it’s common for sea turtles to be recovered in slow speed zones, but that those are designated for manatee activity, not for sea turtles. Mote has designated a voluntary slow speed zone to protect sea turtles. The Sea Turtle Protection Zone includes Sarasota Bay and the Gulf on the south end of Longboat Key, New Pass, Big Sarasota Pass and the Gulf waters of Siesta Key.

“We recover a lot of animals from the bay,” Lovewell said, saying Mote recovers not just sea turtles, but dolphins and manatees from the Bay.

Lovewell said Mote wants to raise awareness of the voluntary slow speed zone to protect the precious marine mammals.

“We are often causing them harm so we should do our due diligence in doing what we can to help them,” Lovewell said. “They’re sort of our sentinel species out there. They’re kind of our canary in the coal mine of the ocean, an indicator of what’s going on. Loggerheads are upper-level predators eating crabs and what not, so when there’s red tide they start stranding. Not to mention they’re just really cool… There’s so many things that make them unique, like 1 in 1000 reach adulthood. To me I think they’re pretty special and worth preserving.”

While sea turtles are hard to spot, and often get hit without boaters realizing it, Lovewell said there are easy steps boaters can take to protect the species including designating one person as a marine life lookout while on the Bay and in shallow Gulf waters, following slow speed zones and wearing polarized glasses, which reduce the glare to reveal sea turtles and other marine life just below the surface.

“It's remarkable what a difference the polarized glasses can make to just allow you to see through the water a bit,” Lovewell said. “It makes a big difference to cut through that glare, and generally it helps people have a better time, too.”