There were a few turtles last night, but none on our stretch of beach. (see audio post below) Ikeya was first observed nesting on Juno Beach during the 2002 season. We had not seen her since then and were lucky enough to be called by the fine folks at Gumbo Limbo nature center in Boca Raton who found her nesting last night in Spanish River Park - almost 60 kilometers from where she nested in 2002. Niki scooted over to check, measure and take a look at her. Niki reported that she was very big at around 165 centimeters making her one of our largest girls! This recapture combined with the turtle Jeanette Wyneken witnessed the other night add greatly to our dataset! I guess our we picked the right website address FLORIDAleatherbacks.com. These turtles are Florida leatherbacks and they are likely using a large portion of the coastline to nest!


On a much sadder note.... I witnessed a Loggerhead trying to nest last night up near the Jupiter Inlet. I noticed she had a large cut on her carapace and upon closer inspection discovered that she had been hit by a boat very recently. Maybe even in the last day or so! She was covered with the unmistakable blue bottom paint from a boat with a large bleeding crack just above her lungs. I think that her right lung may have been punctured making her prognosis not very good. I tried to restrain her on the beach, but there was no way I could have kept her. She had recently had a very bad run-in with humans, and did not want anything to do with me! I will consult our vets this morning and see if there is anything we can do for this turtle if she happens to try and nest again tonight.