Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches, Lectures

Beach Renourishment Impacts of Sea Turtle Nesting and Live Hatchling Production Rates in Broward County, Florida, USA

Event Name/Location

28th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, Loreto, Mexico, January 22-26, 2008

Presentation Date

1-2008

Document Type

Poster

Description

The Broward County Shore Protection Project was conducted in Hallandale, Hollywood, and Dania Beach, FL USA during sea turtle nesting season 2005. Data was collected during pre-, concurrent, and post-construction seasons to establish if the renourishment may have had any negative impacts on nesting sea turtles and hatchling production rates. Nests deemed in threat of disturbance or destruction within the construction zones were relocated to either a restraining hatchery or zones within John U. Lloyd State Park (JUL). Relocating nests to JUL greatly decreased the hatchling production of all nests within this relocation area due to extensive raccoon predation (58% of nests). Emerging adults occasionally encountered construction equipment resulting in non-nesting crawls but the nesting success (nests / total crawls) in the construction year was not significantly different than the average of the five preconstruction years. Compared to the two years prior to construction, incubation time of the eggs was slightly lower in 2006 and not significantly different in 2007. Hatchling production rates during the five years preceding construction and the two post construction years averaged 75.8% and 79.4%, respectively. The slight post-construction increase may have been due to the larger percentages of in situ nests in those years. It appears that the re-nourishment project had no obvious adverse impacts on the quality of the nesting habitat.

Comments

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-602

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