GPS surveying used to track Florida turtles

01/09/2010

Environmental scientists and teams of volunteers are using GPS surveying and locating equipment to track the movements of the turtle population of a Florida nature reserve.

The Guana Reserve Sea Turtle Patrol Program allows people to adopt identified loggerhead turtle nests in the reserve. The volunteers are then equipped with surveying devices and all-terrain vehicles to monitor and track the turtles from each nest.

The nesting season runs from June through to the end of October at the reserve, which stretches along the north-eastern Atlantic coast of the southern state.

The surveying scheme has been set up to monitor the increasing number of nests in the reserve. In previous years the average number of nests found was 72 per year. This year, however, the total found so far is more than triple that, with more than 250 nests counted in a seven-mile stretch of beach in South Ponte Vedra Beach.

Volunteer, Don Palmer, has been surveying nests with Scott Eastman, a Guana Research Reserve biologist. On their trips out to the nests they take cameras, a GPS computerised mapping system to take coordinates and equipment used to mark new nesting sites.

Eastman said practices such as public education and making shrimpers use turtle excluder devices on their nets could be responsible for the booming population.

"Back in June and July, we were getting eight to nine new nests per day; right now were tapering down," he said. "We might well be seeing a 'baby boom' on our beaches."