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Hitting the Beach
Sea turtles have been around since the age of the dinosaurs. But their days may be numbered unless Americans find the will to save them
Audubon Jan./Feb. 2006
It wasn't 10 minutes before turtles started lumbering out of the sea. The first one emerged directly in front of us, and we dropped quickly to our knees. “She sees us,” said Godfrey. “She's gonna bail.” And with that the big loggerhead turned quickly and reentered the waves. Godfrey and Appleson weren't concerned. This happens all the time, they said. You want to do everything you can to avoid it, but sometimes you can't. “She'll try again, probably within an hour,” said Godfrey. So I was absolved. There had been no “take” the previous night.
After the seventh turtle, Appelson said, “I've never seen it this good.” But it was both good and bad. All the turtles I saw that night turned back when they hit the “FEMA berm.” Four months earlier, supposedly to protect beachfront houses from hurricanes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had constructed an artificial dune along the top of the beach. There was something about it the turtles didn't like, explained Godfrey. Maybe the sand is too soft for egg chambers. When I tried digging a hole in the berm the walls instantly collapsed. In 2005 the rate of “false crawls” on the refuge was 59 percent for loggerheads and 66 percent for greens. Before the berm the average had been 44 percent for loggerheads and 49 percent for greens.
If you are sitting or lying down and a sea turtle passes you within arm's length, it's okay to touch it provided you have clearly seen it turn around and head back to the sea. As my fingers brushed one, dinoflagellates on its black carapace left trails of phosphorescence.
I watched the turtles until I fell asleep, ancient, hard-wired reptiles as old as the dinosaurs, hitting this compromised beach—the best beach they have left—as relentlessly as the waves. They've been doing this for 200 million years. I had trouble imagining that it might stop in my lifetime.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
If you live on the beachfront from North Carolina to the Gulf Coast, don't impede sea turtle nesting with beach armament. Dim your outside lights and draw your curtains during nesting season (May 1 through October 31). For more information, call the Caribbean Conservation Corporation at 800-678-7853 or log on to www.cccturtle.org.
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