Many of Florida’s Sea Turtle Nests Were Destroyed by Hurricane Irma – via Herp Digest

By KAREN WEINTRAUB OCT. 6, 2017, New York Times

A loggerhead turtle hatchling headed for the sea. Hurricane Irma wiped out large numbers of leatherback and loggerhead turtle nests in Florida last month, significantly denting this year’s projections for a healthy population.

Credit-Gustavo Stahelin/University of Central Florida

In addition to wiping out homes and businesses, Hurricane Irma swept away a large number of sea turtle nests as it tore across Florida last month.

The state is a center of sea turtle nesting, and this year was developing into a very encouraging year for the endangered leatherback turtles, the threatened loggerheads and green turtles, said Kate Mansfield, a marine scientist and sea turtle biologist at the University of Central Florida. The hurricane suddenly dashed those hopes.

An official statewide picture of the damage to sea turtles won’t be available until Nov. 30, because the nesting season runs through at least the end of this month, said Simona Ceriani, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But it’s clear that nests in many areas of the state were destroyed by Irma, she said.

The northwest Atlantic region is one of the world’s two largest loggerhead nesting areas, and 89 percent of those animals are hatched in Florida, Dr. Ceriani said, citing a 2015 assessment.

At the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, just south of Cape Canaveral, more than half of the green turtle nests laid this season and a quarter of the loggerheads were lost as the storm tore up beaches, said Dr. Mansfield, whose program monitors turtles in the refuge.

Endangered leatherbacks lay their eggs earlier in the season, so none of their nests were lost in the refuge.

Sea turtles, which take 25 to 30 years to reach reproductive age, lay their eggs in the open beach, under vegetation or at the base of a dune. The hurricane eroded key nesting beaches, washing away nests or flooding them with rainwater or seawater, Dr. Mansfield said. 

Along two stretches of beach south of Cape Canaveral, more than 90 percent of incubating loggerhead nests were destroyed by the storm, representing about 25 percent of the season’s total.

A damaged and partially exposed nest, lower right, in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge after major erosion from Hurricane Irma.

Credit-Gustavo Stahelin/University of Central Florida

Sea turtle eggs take 45 to 70 days to incubate in the sand and are more vulnerable early in development, she said.

Sea turtles may lay eggs several times a season. Loggerhead nesting tends to wrap up by August or September, while green turtle nesting may continue through part of the peak hurricane season, Dr. Mansfield said.

Loggerheads have laid only eight new nests at the refuge since the storm, while green turtles have laid 466.

Green turtles typically lay more nests in alternate years. Last year, Hurricane Matthew wiped out many nests, but it was a light laying season for the greens, so there were fewer nests to destroy, Dr. Mansfield said.

This year, with record numbers of green turtle nests on the northeastern coast of Florida — with 12,000 north of Cape Canaveral and more than 15,000 a bit farther south — huge numbers were lost, Dr. Ceriani said.

Hurricane Nate, which is bearing down on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is unlikely to have a huge impact, because the loggerheads that are more common in that area have already laid their nests for the season.

There may be some impact on remaining green turtle nests on the Atlantic coast if the storm hits hard on those beaches, “but I don’t expect it would be bad,” Dr. Ceriani said in a follow-up email.

Although the losses this year are significant, sea turtle populations will survive as long as the hits don’t keep coming, Dr. Mansfield said.

But with hurricanes expected to intensify and increase in frequency, Dr. Mansfield worries about the longer-term health of the populations.

“I’m just hoping with two hurricanes like this in a row that we don’t have another few,” she said, “because we need a break.”

Sea turtles, baby squirrels and other wildlife recovering after Hurricane Irma – via Herp Digest

BY HANNAH MORSE, Brandenton Herald, 9/14/17

A marked turtle nest is seen Wednesday after Hurricane Irma. Marc R. Masferrer mmasferrer@bradenton.com

Hurricane Irma may have gutted some sea turtle nests on local beaches and flung baby squirrels out of their nests, but it’s not said to be the worst wildlife damage seen.

Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring executive director Suzi Fox said volunteers estimated about 25 nests were lost.

 “We have gone through no-name storms during nesting season that have taken much more than this one did,” Fox said.

There have been 488 nests recorded on the island as of Sept. 8, meaning more than 24,000 hatchlings have crawled their way to the Gulf of Mexico. This number already surpasses records calculated for all of last year by 53 nests and nearly 6,000 baby turtles.

 High winds from the storm plucked some of the wooden stakes that marked where the nests lay, but Fox said the eggs could still be in the ground.

 “Even though there are stakes down, we have recovered some of those nests by following GPS and restaking,” she said.

The black skimmers nesting on Holmes Beach had moved a couple of blocks north, Fox said, but she’s concerned about the 40 juveniles who can’t fly.

 “We need to be very careful of the rack line,” she explained, noting the collection of seaweed pushed by the high surf toward shore. The birds like to rest and forage in the rack lines, and could be stepped on.

 On Mote Marine Laboratory’s turtle turf from Longboat Key to Venice, officials started on Wednesday to assess the nests. Hayley Rutger, Mote’s content development manager, said it may take a week or more to figure out which nests were spared any damage, which had hatched, which were washed over but potentially viable and which were completely lost.

 From the last update from Mote from earlier this month, this turtle season so far brought 4,421 loggerhead turtle nests and 80 green sea turtle nests along the 35-mile patrol area.

 If nests are being coated with waves, it’s OK, Rutger said.

“(The nest is) designed to drain, so we tell (people) to leave it alone,” she said.

 But Mote’s sea turtle program can be contacted at 941-388-4331 if anyone sees eggs exposed to the air or hatchlings headed in the opposite direction of the water on any beaches from Longboat Key to Venice. Rutger said any hatchling that is walking away from the ocean can be put into a bucket with a layer of sand — not in water or air conditioning — and a thin towel over the bucket as Mote is called.

 While Wildlife Inc. Education and Rehabilitation Center is relying on three generators to power their Bradenton Beach headquarters, they haven’t stopped their operations.

 Since Irma passed over earlier in the week, the nonprofit has collected about 40 baby squirrels, with more expected. The latter half of hurricane season usually coincides with squirrel season, said the nonprofit’s president Ed Straight.

 “We’re getting calls all the time about baby squirrels,” Straight said.

A great blue heron, raccoon, screech owl, pelican and a duck, among other creatures, are also recovering after the storm. “Most things just got hit by something blowing,” he said.

Even though they’re waiting on the lights to return, there is one upside.

“The good news is we have it so warm, we don’t have to worry about the incubators,” Straight laughed.

Hurricane Irma Siphons Water from Shore, Strands 2 Manatees

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | September 11, 2017 05:18pm ET

As Hurricane Irma pounded Florida over the weekend, it brought drenching rainfall and historic flooding across the state, particularly along the shoreline.

But in Sarasota Bay in Manatee County, a pair of massive manatees were temporarily left high and dry.  

A unique combination of storm conditions allowed Irma to siphon water away from the shore toward the storm's center. This stranded a pair of manatees on the sand where they wallowed helplessly until a group of people came to their rescue, according to reports posted on social media. 

Irma made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm, with winds gusting up to 120 mph (195 km/h). The hurricane's winds were so powerful that they pushed water away from beaches, first in the Bahamas and then later in the Gulf Coast, while low pressure at Irma's center hoovered up even more water from coastal areas, leaving broad expanses of the seabed exposed, The Washington Post reported.

Footage of Tampa Bay showed a vast expanse of exposed sand, with two dogs frolicking in an area that would normally be underwater, local resident Tim Scheu said in a tweet.

Continued 

Nesting sea turtles are on Florida's frontlines as Irma nears (Also Info on Anegada iguanas And Puerto Rican Crested Toads, as well as what people (dealers, breedders, zoos are doing) – via Herp Digest

ABC NEWS by M.L. Nestel, 9/8/07

 When Hurricane Irma finally dissipates, the damage wrought by the storm won't only affect people.

 The Category 4 storm, which ravaged the Caribbean and is expected pummel Florida this weekend, displaced and devastated habitats and various species including turtles, parrots and iguanas, multiple experts and a federal government official told ABC News.

 And as vulnerable southern Florida residents heed Gov. Rick Scott's plea to flee Hurricane's Irma's ire, a record high 19,000 turtle nests laid this year along an almost 10-mile stretch of beach may not survive Irma's powerful winds and surging tides.

 The storm's threat caused one turtle hospital in Florida to move all of their patients.

 By Thursday evening, 40 or so turtle hatchlings and 10 wounded fully grown and young adult sea green, loggerhead and leatherback turtles were transported from the Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach for a sojourn at the ritzy Georgia Aquarium.

 "We made the decision to take all of those turtles to the Georgia Aquarium where they will still be getting the critical care they need," Hannah Deadman, a spokeswoman for the center, told ABC News.

 The move was a departure from last year's safety measure for Hurricane Matthew, which was to dry-dock the turtles.

 "There's just more in store with Irma," Deadman said.

 The turtles, many of whom were saved from ghost nets or boat strikes, or suffer from chronic debilitation syndrome (CDS) -- the turtle equivalent of the flu -- will be enjoying new digs.

 The future is much more dismal for the thousands of turtles nesting along beaches running from northern Palm Beach line through John D. MacArthur Park.

"Some of those nests, especially those closest to the water will get washed out," Deadman said. "The eggs can get scattered and that leaves them not viable.”

All of them, be it sea green, loggerhead or leatherback, are already left to fend for themselves, Deadman said, because after a female lays her eggs she returns back to the ocean.

 Normally, that would mean fending off being hunted by fire ants, racoons, crabs and sea birds, not a massive storm.

 The silver lining, Deadman said, is that the nesting season's peak has already come and gone.

 "Since we're outside peak nesting season, we’re not going to have as much loss as if the hurricane came in July," she said.

 The disruption in the turtle population around Florida is cause for concern but also some hope too.

"That's the thing about nature, it always has a way of working itself out," Jeff Fleming, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Southeast Region, told ABC News.

Fleming marveled at the turtles who hatch and nest along a Florida beach, and after decades roaming the globe, return back to their birthplace.

 "They're pretty doggone smart," he said.

 Hurricanes are common enough in Florida, meaning these creatures adapt, Fleming said.

 "What they do is hedge their bets," he said. "Even if a storm hits at some juncture during the nesting season some of those will incubate successfully.”

 He added: "No storm season is a total loss.”

 Perhaps most troublesome, Fleming said, is the effects Irma may cause to the habitats of the regions hit the hardest.

 "Beaches could be eroded; depending on the turn of the storm, marshes can be damaged because a nasty hurricane you can get a lot of saltwater," he said.

 Already, Irma is responsible for causing authorities in Puerto Rico to protect endangered parrots who live in the El Yunque National Forest on the main island's eastern edge, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service release.

 "We’ve already been doing a lot for parrots," Fleming said of the parrots who were sheltered inside of a hurricane-proof aviary built a decade ago.

Still, the effects of Irma on the wild parrot population have yet to be assessed.

"But birds generally have the wherewithal to move out of harm's way," Fleming said.

However, the storm's lethal effects have left apparently left a "critically endangered" species of iguana in question.

There are only around 500 Anegada iguanas -- named after the British Virgin Island Anegada -- left, and a facility to transition newborns into the wild took a beating, according to conservation biologist Kelly Bradley of the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas.

 She said the small island benefits greatly from these animals whose numbers dwindled to the hundreds after being killed by invasive predators like cats.

"They're really important parts of this ecosystem," she said. "The plant community will suffer if that iguana species is lost to this hurricane.”

 The endangered plant black sage is specifically at risk.

 "They're major seed dispersers and replant the forest," she said.

They do this by swallowing leaves and berries whole and regurgitating them.

 "Seeds that go through iguana gut germinate faster and have a higher survivorship as a seedling," she said.

 Her Fort Worth Zoo colleague Diane Barber said Irma isn't all that bad when it comes to some animals.

 "I kind of feel a little guilty being excited there was a hurricane," she said, noting that the heavy tropical depressions caused by Irma drive the Puerto Rican crested toad to procreate.

 The population today stands at 3,000.

 But only years ago the species had dwindled to a few hundred.

They thrive on the U.S. island territory but to keep the population flourishing, the toads' eggs are incubated at 19 zoos on the mainland.

 And when a hurricane or tropical storm form, Puerto Rican crested toads are the benefactors.

 "They're explosive breeders," Barber said.

 With enough rain, ponds will form and the males will go searching for mates.

 "With just 3 inches of rain they sense it and they will migrate over to the water about 3 miles away and breed," she said.

 That isn't to say the catastrophic storm conditions won't do extensive damage to these creatures.

 "If there's massive waves or tidal surges, these toads need to breathe through their skin, and salt prevents them from doing that," Barber said. "They're so close to the beach that if the storm surges it will kill many of the tadpoles.”

 Meanwhile, for animals in captivity Hurricane Irma will change up their routines.

 John Brueggen, who runs the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, Florida, said his staff is rounding up every bird and monkey into closed spaces.

 As for eenomous snakes, told ABC affiliate WJXX "they all go in a pillow case that’s tied or zipped shut. They can breathe fine. It’s a dark place, calms them down," he said. "Then they go in a locked box, like a tool box with air holes.

 "And they stay inside a super strong building … like they did during Hurricane Matthew.”

 If water breaches his farm's fences, the alligators, Brueggen said, "may go with the water.

 "But we’ve been here 125 years and we’ve never had that problem," he said. "So knock on wood, we won’t have it again this time."

 At the Central Florida Zoo, animals are being fit into crates and "nighttime quarters," director Dino Ferri told ABC News.

 He said a team of three zoo staffers will be sleeping on the zoo grounds when Hurricane Irma strikes.

 "As soon as it passes we go out in three-man teams to assess," he said.

 The biggest threat Ferri cited beyond water intrusion is if a tree falls on a structure.

 "There's only so much we can do," he said.

 But he's confident the zoo's block concrete buildings will hold up against Hurricane Irma.

 "It will take an act of God to knock them down.”

’It ain’t our first rodeo’: Orlando’s Gatorland promises its critters won’t get free during Irma – via Herp Digest

Washington Post, by Cleve R. Wootson, Jr. 9/10/17

A great egret rides an alligator at Gatorland theme park outside Orlando. (Michael DeFreitas/Alamy)

For a series of videos posted by Gatorland to reassure people things will be OK

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/09/10/it-aint-our-first-rodeo-orlandos-gatorland-promises-its-critters-wont-get-free-during-irma/

So here’s one less thing to worry about:

The people who run Gatorland in Orlando have promised that their thousands of alligators and crocodiles — not to mention their venomous snakes and boa constrictors — will not be making a great escape during Hurricane Irma.

Protecting the people of Orlando from any reptile-related mayhem, Gatorland officials told their Facebook followers, are decades of experience and eight-foot fences.

“We’ve been fighting hurricanes and big nasty storms since 1949 here at Gatorland,” said park president Mark McHugh, speaking directly to the camera as he crouched next to a dozen or so sunning gators. “It ain’t our first rodeo.”

The snakes and other animals are secured via procedures prescribed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They’re placed in locked cages, boxes or bags, which are placed in locked buildings. McHugh called the measures “doubly, triply safe. None of our animals are getting out.”

The alligators and crocodiles, meanwhile, will stay in their ponds and lakes.

“These critters have been fighting hurricanes and big old nasty storms for about 65 million years, and they’re quite good at it,” he said. “We just leave all our alligators in our ponds and our lakes. They’re on their own. They just take a deep breath and sink in the water and they weather this thing out.”

Those ponds and lakes are protected by eight-foot fences. Another eight-foot fence surrounds the entire 110-acre park.

As an added measure, he said, a “small team of animal experts” will be riding out the storm in Gatorland, “monitoring everything, keeping an eye out.”

When Irma’s winds die down, they’ll walk the park, looking for storm damage and escapees.

“None of our animals are going anywhere here at Gatorland, so if you see an alligator floating down your street there at your house, it ain’t ours; don’t call us,” McHugh said.

Gatorland, which has been around since 1949, is just one of Florida’s many unique, kitschy or just downright bizarre attractions that try to lure tourists away from the glitzier theme parks.

For 10 bucks, the park will let you wrestle a nine-foot alligator. Photos cost extra. But there are also places that offer live mermaid shows, a park that will reenact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in all its bloody detail, and many, many places where people can watch manatees do whatever it is that manatees do.

These places, often built around fantasies, still have to cope with the real-world threats of the Category 3 storm currently churning through Florida.

The Orlando area is under a flood and hurricane watch and is expected to get winds up to 75 mph, according to the National Weather Service. The area could also get as much as 16 inches of rain on Sunday and Monday.

Purveyors of the small-scale entertainment operations don’t have to look far to see how storm damage — real or imagined — can wreak havoc on their bottom lines.

In Beaumont, Tex., for example, another alligator-themed establishment flooded by Hurricane Harvey is fighting a public-relations battle of sorts and trying to ensure the public that no, its gators did not escape.

Optimistically, Gatorland in Orlando posted that it would reopen on Tuesday, when parts of Florida will still be feeling the hurricane’s effects.