The dunes on Singer Island have been a source of contention between the condo owners, the nesting sea turtles, the city and county government, and Andrea, the first named storm of the season. Andrea battered the coastline from Florida to North Carolina, stripping away what was left of the protective dunes along Singer Island. But Andrea wasnt the first. In this sequence you can see blurry photos taken of Frances and Wilma and then the storm waves from last year. See the photo album for a slide show of all of the pictures.

Andrea Damage

Andrea arrived in mid-May, well after the start of the turtle nesting season (March 1 through October 31), and many nests were destroyed along Singer Island.

This created a real crisis for both turtles and people. Here the condo parking lot has started to collapse onto the beach. One more storm and the sea is eating away at the foundations of the building.

Once the ocean gets behind the sea wall, the sea wall collapses. Pessimists believe that eventually all of Singer Island will be walled. This would be truly unfortunate for both the people and the turtles. Once you have a seawall, the beach is gone forever. And what is the value of an oceanfront condo without a beach? Not as much as an oceanfront condo with a beach. So saving the beach serves the interests of both condo owners and turtles.

John's Place

Even the little guys get hurt. John has lost his deck, his trees, and all of his dunes. Last year Debbie is standing in front of his place looking at storm damage. This year everything is gone.

Construction Follies

Last year I blogged about new construction so close to the water line. This year you can see the results. One can only wonder what went through the builder's mind, to put such a big high-rise at water's edge. Contrast this with the WWII bunkers that are finally disintegrating after 60 years.

Sacrificial Sand

The politicians, news media and condo residents gather to press for sacrificial sand, to the tune of 1,600 tons per day. Normally this wouldn't have happened during turtle season, but the damage was too extensive to head into hurricane season without doing anything.

Relocating Turtles

Because the turtle nesting season had already started, all of the existing nests needed to be relocated. Unfortunately, if a nest is older than 24 hours and the eggs are relocated, none of them will hatch. You need to relocate them right away. Last year we had good hatching numbers for nests relocated in the 24-hour timeframe. Either way, any older nests that survived Andrea would have been doomed, with tons of sand dumped on top of them.

Each morning before the bulldozers started work the nests from the night before were excavated and moved to another location. Unfortunately, the concentration of turtle nests proved an irresistible temptation for poachers. One miscreant was apprehended in a bar trying to sell turtle eggs. I wish someone would tell these guys about Viagra.

The new dunes look very solid. We all hope not to have another bad storm or hurricane any time soon. The long-term interests of people and turtles are the same. The various government agencies, city and county governments, and citizens need to work together to find environmentally sound solutions for preserving the beach for turtles and people.

Support the Volunteers

The volunteers have been making heroic efforts to monitor the beach and save the turtle nests. Surveys have been very difficult this year, what with all of the nest relocations and additional red tape. Nesting numbers are updated regularly on http://www.singerislandseaturtles.com. Visitors are welcome!

The bounary line between the dune restoration and John D. MacArthur State Park.

Spring is here in South Florida, the nesting season has started (we already have several leatherback nests) and the loggerheads will be nesting shortly, as you can see.

Thanks to Michael Patrick O'Neill for sharing this photo of mating logggerheads taken off the Breakers in Palm Beach.

You can find his wonderful children's books (and more photos) at http://www.mpostock.com/booksa.html.

And thanks to Todd Essick for sharing these photos of Mike at work!

Todd's fine art photography can be found at http://www.essickphoto.com/.

While I was in Antibes at the Underwater Festival this last week I happened across an article in the International Herald Tribune entitled In troubled Lebanon, a safety zone for sea turtles. It tells the story of Mona Khalil and Habiba Syed and their admirable and heroic efforts to save the few remaining nesting sea turtles in a war-torn beach near Tyre, Lebanon. It's only one of three nesting beaches left in Lebanon, and they have greens and loggerheads but no leatherbacks. The women monitor the beach and put down wire mesh to protect the nests from being dug up by foxes. During the recent fighting their house was hit by an Israeli rocket. However, they had evacuated and none of the nests were damaged. You can read the story from the Tribune here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/23/features/turtles.php.

I did a little poking around and found that this wasn't the only article on Mona Khalil and Habiba Syed protecting their sea turtles. There's another article published by the World Conservation Union (http://www.iucn.org) which provides additional details. Here's a quote from the article:

Go to http://www.iucn.org/places/wescana/news/turtle.html. I cadged the nice photo of Mona and a nesting green from this article.

MSNBC also picked up the story from Reuters, which you can read at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15195692/.

These incredible women devote themselves to rescuing sea turtles in a war zone. What could possibly be more heroic than that?

The end of this year's nesting season is nigh, and there's not a lot more action, especially at the North end where there was significant beach erosion. I'm heading out for the Underwater Festival in Antibes, France, so this will be my last blog entry for a while. A couple of weeks ago I went out surveying with Callie and Debbie, who are shown here excavating a couple of nests. 

There were no hatchlings, just eggs to count. The green turtle nests are quite deep, and require a lot of digging before you can locate the clutch and count the eggs.

One nest was very unusual because the turtle had nested under a crossover. Instead of sand, which normally covers the beach there was topsoil instead which had washed down from the condo landscaping. You can see the photo where the earth is all dark.

Nesting numbers were down, even though we ended up not having any hurricanes. The exact numbers are on the Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island web site at http://www.singerislandseaturtles.com. The entire north end of the island has lost its beach, and therefore its nests. Many of the condos on the North end are considering sea walls, such as the one under construction here at Sea Dunes. Once the beach is armored, that's it for the turtles. They won't be able to nest without protective dunes. Beach armoring is a complex issue with no easy answers. The ABA Law Journal addressed the legal aspects in its July article, Up Against the Seawall. It's available online at http://www.abanet.org/journal/redesign/07fbeach.html.

The fact that the North end will likely be armored within a few years makes it all the more tragic that the Riviera Beach City Council is trying to push through a deal where they'll give away part of the public beach on the South end to a developer for a high-rise hotel. This is the widest and deepest part of the beach, and is not threatened by erosion. Local activists are circulating a petition that registered voters can sign to allow people to vote on the proposal. Mayor Brown and some of the council members are on record as saying that opponents of the deal are opposed to all development, which simply isn't true. What the opponents of the giveaway want is a renovation of the existing Ocean Mall into a world-class beach resort with protected dunes where the sea turtles can nest and the hatchlings won't get disoriented due to the lights from the tall buildings. It seems so obvious that promoting Singer Island as an eco-resort where visitors could interact with turtles and hatchlings without damaging them or the environment could be a huge tourist attraction, far outweighing the short-term financial gain from a single Marriott hotel, but greed allied with a stunning lack of imagination seems to be the main characteristics of the current government. The activist group Citizens for Responsible Growth for Riviera Beach tells the preservationist side of the story at http://www.rg4rb.org/1_new_first_Frame.htm. Try to ignore the garish colors and annoying flashing animations. Underneath it all there's some interesting content. The Palm Beach Post also has an ongoing series on the larger eminent domain controversies Riviera Beach is embroiled in on their web site at http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/news/special_reports/riviera_beach.

Now that nesting season is over I plan to write about scuba diving pioneer Norine Rouse, who passed away this year. She is shown in this photo (taken some years ago by Douglas Seifert) with her friend Robert, who came back to visit her every year for 17 years until one year he came no more.

Her daughters have loaned her dive logs to Larry Wood, the curator of the Loggerhead Marine Life Center (http://www.marinelife.org) so that they can be transcribed and entered into a database. They constitute a unique historical record of the Palm Beach underwater environment since the 1970's. So much has been lost already that it's heartbreaking to see decisions made today that continue to negatively impact marine life in this most special corner of the world. To learn more about Norine's amazing life and the impact she had on the lives of all of the people and creatures who knew and loved her, take a look at the 6 pages of guest book entries from the Palm Beach Post at http://www.legacy.com/palmbeachpost/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=16138604. This will give you an idea of what a great gift her detailed dive logs are for gaining a deeper understanding of how our local marine ecosystem has been degraded over time.

That's it for the sea turtle season in 2006. You'll see the volunteers from the Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island out there again in 2007, hoping for a better year.

This week Debbie excavated a green turtle nest that had to be at least 5 feet deep. A lot of sand had washed up on top of a nest that was probably already 3 to 4 feet deep, so this one went down quite far. She did find it, as well as over 100 eggshells, a few infertile eggs, and 6 live hatchlings, one of which hadn't fully emerged from its shell. The hatchlings seemed lethargic, so we placed them in my collapsible green bucket, shown here. You can see the little flippers part way out of the shell.

By the time we had finished digging and counting, one of the more active hatchlings escaped from the bucket, which folds on itself. The others seemed content to stay where they were, snoozing in the shady bucket.

However, escaping from the green bucket was only the beginning of our hatchling's adventures. Here she stands poised on the brink of disaster: A deep footprint in the sand.

Sometimes it seems as though the hatchlings are drawn to obstacles they could easily walk around. She's face down and struggling mightily.

It's easy to get upended when you don't know which way is up. She's trying to right herself now after having fallen into a different footprint.

Here she is, free (after a little help).

Footprints and other obstacles can be dangerous to the turtles if no human is around to lend a helping hand. Their struggles make them visible to birds and other predators, and even if they don't get eaten, they expend precious energy struggling before they even get to the water. If their energy stores are depleted before they even get to the water they may not make it all the way out to the gulf stream.

The other hatchlings got a ride in the car to the Loggerhead Marine Life Center. see http://www.marinelife.org, where they will be cared for in the turtle hospital in the hatchling tank. If it looks like they're desperately trying to escape, that's because they are. The hatchlings are hard-wired to keep swimming, swimming, swimming. There is no concept of "holding tank" in their evolutionary history. Fortunately, they are being fed so they don't exhaust themselves and drown.

On the drive to the Marine Life Center, I heard some rustling in the green bucket which I had on the driver's side floor. I assumed some of the sleepy turtles had woken up and become active, but instead the partially hatched turtle completed the process and had broken out of her shell. Here she is in the hatchling ICU section, which is a little mesh platform where the weak turtles can rest without having to swim.

There are alternating bars of light and shade in the turtle hospital so it's difficult to see, but her shell is crumpled and hasn't fully popped out yet (top turtle).

The hatchlings will be fed and cared for until they are well enough to be taken out to the gulf stream, where their chances of survival are increased.

The Marine Life Center also cares for a variety of other sick and injured turtles. This green was badly injured by a boat propeller, much like the dead green I wrote about in "Death on the Beach" earlier in the year. If you view the photo on the right in the picture album you can see how deep the wound is.

The Marine Life Center is also a good place to appreciate the natural beauty of the turtles in a way that is impossible in the ocean, even for scuba divers. The water is clear and shallow, and the turtles aren't going anywhere very far. This is a lovely little hawksbill. You can see why they were almost driven to extinction for their shells to make into jewelry and combs.

You can also see the hatchlings themselves in greater detail, as shown here with this green hatchling.

The loggerheads are also quite beautiful and it's fascinating to view their subtle coloration and details up close.

Some turtles also have companion animals, like this one with a grouper tank mate (see bottom left). It was hard to take a good photo because the grouper likes to hang out under the turtle's chin in the shade. I guess the grouper feels safe there, although it might not be so safe if the turtle wasn't well fed.

The turtle hospital is instrumental in saving thousands of hatchlings every year as well as countless mature sick and injured turtles. The Marine Life Center, like the Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island (http://www.singerislandseaturtles.com), is a non-profit organization staffed largely by volunteers who donate their time and energies to trying to keep sea turtles from the brink of extinction.

As you might expect, it costs a lot of money to care for and rehabilitate sick and injured turtles, approximately $1600 per turtle per year. The Marine Life Center is in the process of building a new facility and are continually trying to raise funds for their programs. You can adopt a turtle, or simply make a tax-deductible donation. Contact them at:

Loggerhead Marinelife Center of Juno Beach
14200 US Hwy. One
Juno Beach FL 33408
561-627-8280 fax 561-627-8305

You can also make a donation on their web site at http://www.marinelife.org/donations.htm. The Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island donated $1000 to the new building under the Green Sea Turtle heading as well as our old ATV (all-terrain vehicle) which they will use as a backup if one of theirs breaks down.

If you are in the area, the turtle yard is definitely worth a visit. It's a terrific opportunity to see these wonderful reptiles up close and to meet and speak with the volunteers who care so deeply about saving them.

Last Tuesday the seas started picking up. We excavated several nests to get a count, as you can see here where Adrianna is digging for a Green nest.

Here's a cute little green hatchling that was lurking at the bottom of one of the excavated nest -- we dug up several.

She was really eager to get going, swimming in the air with her little flippers. She finally went off eagerly and hopefully into her new life in the ocean.

Excavating a nest involves making little piles of 10 of hatched shells, pipped dead (meaning the turtle started to hatch but died in the attempt), dead, and infertile eggs.

The reason you do them in 10's is to get a count and not loose track. There can be as many as 130 empty shells in a nest.

Debbie also pulled up a lot of stakes with the yellow cards, which are precious and rare. You can see her here under the new construction site where they are putting up another big highrise right at the dune's edge. It's a good thing she got the stakes with the yellow cards. A day later and they would have been all gone.

When we got to Waterglades (the last condo on the North end next to MacArthur park) Debbie excavated a nest that had been relocated and had recently hatched. Here's Adrianna and Debbie walking up towards the nests under the crossover. For some reason the Greens really liked that spot under the crossover -- there were several nests under there this year. You can see how the seas are picking up.

In addition to the hatch, there's also a fresh Green nest staked out.

Here's Debbie counting out the eggs from the hatched nest. This particular nest had been relocated, so it was important to get an accurate count. Out of the 86 relocated eggs, a full 66 actually hatched, proving that nest relocation can save a lot of turtles that would otherwise die.

It's a good thing we dug up those nests, because ocean conditions went downhill from there. This is the last little straggler who made it out before everything got swept away.

Here's that same crossover a day later, completely inundated with the dune gone. The ocean ripped away all of the remaining sand that had been trucked in last winter to compensate for Wilma. You can see big chunks of landscaping falling into the sea. The battering destablized the crossover to the point it was in danger of being swept away.

Here's Bruce and Mario loosening the bolts so that the sea would take just the stairs instead of ripping the whole structure to bits. That dark blob you see in the whitewater on the left is one of the two palm trees that we lost when the dune collapsed.

The waves were intense all up and down the coast. It would have been a surfer's paradise it wasn't for all the chunks of lumber and debris being washed around. This is looking north past MacArthur park to Juno.

The ocean didn't take the stairs after all. And this is what it looked like after the tide went out. However, just because the stakes and sand are washed away doesn't necessarily mean that the nests are gone too. Greens dig their egg chambers about 3 feet down, so it's possible that the Green nest is still there and will hatch eventually. If they live, these hatchlings will be boys because it's shadier under the crossover.

The damage to the dunes from these high seas is far worse than Wilma, Frances or Jeanne. All of the trucked-in sand is gone, and then some. On the left is Debbie digging under the crossover, and on the right the same view a couple days later.

This is the view looking south down condo row, with everyone's landscaping drooping into the sea.

In addition to our two drowned palm trees, Waterglades had its sprinkler system ripped out, water washing into the parking lot, and every last bit of protective dune washed away. This second floor apartment now has a little more ocean frontage than the owners bargained for.

Today there was an article in the Palm Beach Post, "Riviera weighs 99-year lease of public beach" where the city is intending to give away the Ocean Mall to builder Dan Catalfumo to construct a 28-story Marriott hotel/condo complex (you know, one of those deals where the unit owners don't live here full time, vote, or give a damn about environmental impact) plus 60,000 sq. ft. of shops and restaurants. People were more or less OK with redeveloping the Ocean Mall, but nobody who lives here wanted another high rise, but the city council is determined. Oh, but wait: the last paragraph in the article explains it: "Kinsey also has reached an agreement under which the city will get a share of Marriott's profits from the hotel/condo units." Ka-ching. Ring up another one for the Singer Island cash cow.

Palm tree before. Palm tree after.

It's easy to understand people who already live here wanting to put up sea walls to protect their property from further dune erosion even though a sea wall guarantees that the beach (and the turtles) will be gone forever. Some falsely cast it as a "people vs. turtles" issue in spite of the fact that people and turtles basically want the same thing: an unspoiled beach. The older condos were built 30 years ago during a quiet stretch hurricane-wise, so it's understandable that they want to save their homes. But everyone who is familiar with Singer Island thinks it's crazy to want to cram even more high-rise buildings on a fragile barrier island in Hurricane Alley. Especially after Frances, after Jeanne, after Ivan, after Katrina and after Wilma. Some may call it delusional; others call it Riviera Beach.

Ernesto wasn't the storm everyone feared, so Singer Island got another pass. However, that doesn't mean there weren't any problems. This picture of Debbie and Christie clearly shows how close the new construction is to the ocean and how drainage from the site is eroding the dune (look at the dark gash in the dune over their heads).

There was more beach erosion, and Fatty the raccoon was out digging up nests. Debbie named him Fatty because he's so fat his paws sink deep into the sand, making him easy to track. When high storm tides wash away enough sand from the top of the beach, Fatty can smell the clutch and he starts digging. He raided several nests the day after Ernesto, but Callie and Donna were out, excavating the raided nests in an effort to rescue any hatchlings Fatty didn't get.

Callie and Donna will take the three rescued Loggerhead hatchlings shown in the black t-shirt to the Marinelife Center (http://www.marinelife.org) where they can be driven out to the Gulf Stream in the evening. One of them doesn't look too good with his little head to the side and his flippers turned down, but the other two were actively trying to escape the shirt.

The hatchlings are hard wired to keep marching until they hit the water where they keep swimming until they reach the Sargasso Sea. You never get tired of watching them march so fearlessly to the ocean, and then see their little heads popping up as they swim out to the deep. However, if they get depleted from being disoriented or dehydrated from being in the hot sand too long, they don't have the resources for the swim. They would most likely die if the volunteers didn't take them to the Marinelife Center.

Diana DiMeo took these wonderful photos of a Green, a Leatherback and a Loggerhead hatchling.

You can clearly see the difference between the three species, both topside and when they're turned over on their bellies. The Leatherbacks and the Greens are the most endangered, but South Florida has more Loggerhead nests than anyplace in the world. If these beaches go, it could push the Loggerheads to extinction. If you're statistically inclined, the Singer Island nesting data from 1996 through 2005 is up on our web site at http://www.singerislandseaturtles.com.

Hawksbill turtles are frequently seen by divers on the local reefs, as shown in this photo one of my dive buddies Clark took of a Hawksbill with some sea fans.

However, Hawksbills are not known to nest on our beaches, but there may be one or two nests tucked in among the others. On the other hand, Leatherback turtles are almost never seen by local divers. They come to lay their eggs, and then start on their long migrations to deeper waters where their favorite food, cannon ball jellyfish, can be found. The http://www.floridaleatherbacks.com/research/tracking/tracking.asp site has more information about tracking the migrations of adult Leatherbacks.
Anyone who loves the ocean and cares about the preservation of its creatures owes a debt of gratitude to the efforts of the volunteers who make time in their lives to take the surveys and do the leg (or fin) work involved in gathering statistics with which to arm environmental activists as well as the state and federal agencies charged with protecting natural resources. If it wasn't for Debbie Sobel, who has been monitoring sea turtles for 15 years, the Singer Island turtles would be in far worse shape than they are today.

Debbie organizes all of the volunteers and trains new ones. It takes an entire season of effort for her to train a volunteer who is qualified enough to do the survey. And the survey is work, not a leisurely stroll on the beach. You walk 2.5 miles in the sand under the hot Florida summer sun, digging up nests up to 2 or 3 feet deep with your bare hands. You can't use a shovel because you may injure a turtle or an egg. You then log every nest, count every egg from a hatched nest, and hope to rescue as many turtles as you can.

It's hard to know what the future holds. The Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island (http://www.singerislandseaturtles.com) and the Loggerhead Marinelife Center (http://www.marinelife.org) are trying to make a difference, one turtle at a time. The Palm Beach County Reef Rescue (http://www.reef-rescue.org) is fighting a battle to save our coral reefs. But these volunteer organizations are outgunned when pitted against big-money real estate interests and self-serving politicians.

Last week we had a Green turtle wash up on the beach. She was killed by a motorboat propeller, as is apparent from the terrible gashes in her shell. This is truly tragic and something nobody wants to see. Greens are vegetarians, so they don't grow as fast as other species, reaching sexual maturity when they are about 30 years of age. That means she hatched on this beach at least 30 years ago when there were no high-rise condos, motorboats, discarded fishing line, plastic bags, or discarded balloons to harm her. You can see how large she is from the photo with Debbie standing right behind her.

This photo is of Debbie and Chris with the live Green they rescued after she was trapped under a wooden crossover. It's heartbreaking when you see how beautiful they are when they're alive.

Human population densities have enormous negative impacts on turtles, especially when they come to shore to nest and are most vulnerable. Sadly, this is of no concern to the government of Riviera Beach. They're planning more high-rise condos at the site of the old Ocean Mall, which was damaged beyond repair by Wilma last year.

The plan is for 125 hotel rooms and 250 resort condominiums housed in a 300-foot-high building with 60,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. You can see the plan as well as the adjacent high-rises that are already under construction in the photo gallery. The city council basically double-crossed the Singer Island Civic Association, which had initially supported the plan under the condition that the Ocean Mall would be rebuilt based on a low-density village concept. You can read the article from the Palm Beach Post here. These days it seems like government at all levels exists only to serve its corporate masters, who in this part of Florida consist mainly of real estate developers.

 This photo is not of the proposed development, but of the ugly piles already under construction next door. The old Ocean Mall is on your left behind the low pink wall. If you think you'd like to live here, be prepared to pay upwards of $2 million for an oceanfront unit.

The problem with Singer Island is that the population is largely seasonal, and most people are gone up North during the summer. They also aren't registered to vote here. So summer is when Riviera Beach rams all kinds of things through without having to face much in the way of protest. Note also that the planned high-rise calls for "resort condominiums", not residential units. These resort condominium units are not intended to be lived in full time; they are intended as part-investment, part-vacation home that can be rented out like a hotel room. Riviera Beach definitely doesn't want more full-time residents and potential voters to interfere with their money grab.

The Citizens for Responsible Growth for Riviera Beach is a non-profit Florida Corporation composed of unpaid volunteers spearheading the fight against the over-development of Singer Island. As such, they can be said to represent the sea turtles as well as the humans who are against ripping off the beach to put profits in developers' pockets. Turtles have no voice, no vote and no money to buy influence. Their continued existence depends on us to make the case for them. You can read about the coalition CRGRB is building to fight back here: http://www.rg4rb.org/1_new_first_Frame.htm.

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

-- Joni Mitchell

This week we had students from the University of Central Michigan on our surveys. It's a pretty hot slog in the Florida heat and humitidy for folks who aren't used to it! You can see Debbie on the right in the blue hat showing them the difference between the turtle tracks and a nest.

Here she's showing Shelley how to fill out a hatch report where we've dug up a nest to get a count of how many hatchlings made it out. We count the egg shells from the ones who made it, the unfertilized eggs, and the dead hatchlings (if any).

The photo album this week features on of the Green turtle stragglers. This one was the last turtle out, who we found while excavating a nest. Her egg must have been at the very bottom, so she got a lift up and out to the sea.

The Greens look different from the Loggerheads. In this picture you can see Debbie holding her up so the students can see her white belly.

Here's a closeup.

Photos 5 through 9 in the album show her progress until she finally makes it into the surf. This one seemed attracted to every obstacle along the way, and made several attempts to broach the surf, being beaten back several times along the way. In this shot you can see her impact into the foam. The turtles are so little, the slightest wave sends them flying.

We've had such severe dune erosion and so many nests destroyed that we're all just praying that we won't get hit by a hurricane this year. This shot shows a turtle who searched in vain for a way up the dune to next -- it's a false crawl -- she gave up and went back to the sea.

We were able to find a nest in the escarp which we relocated high on the dune. This one had only a few eggs exposed to the elements and hadn't been predated when we discovered it, so we were able to dig it out of the escarp and relocate it -- 130 eggs in all. We hope they'll eventually hatch.

Not all clutches are so lucky. This nest was probably partially exposed by the high tides and then and dug up by some kind of animal, probably by Fatty the racoon or another predator (crows, iguanas, herons, dogs, the list goes on). The turtles weren't quite ready to hatch, so you can see their remains along with the broken eggs. That's what happens in nature. Hatchlings have a very high mortality rate, and not very many of them survive to adulthood.

One of the problems we have on Singer Island is iguanas. Some idiot released a pair of them, and now the island is overrun. They have no natural predators themselves, and they eat the turtle eggs and hatchlings. When they're young they're bright green so they blend in with the trees, as shown here.

The hazard to sea turtles from humans goes beyong sea walls which prevent turtles from nesting. Other pressures, such as the thoughtless release of iguanas, pose additional perils. Currently Florida is having problems with many non-native species pushing out native species, such as pythons in the Everglades or lionfish on the reef (I saw one while out scuba diving--they're native to the Pacific and are only here because another idiot dumped them from an aquarium). Once these non-native species start reproducing, they're very hard to eradicate. A study is currently being made, and hopefully something will soon be done to cull the iguanas. Eradicating them completely is probably not possible.

There are many ugly elements in the back story of this conflict, with charges of racism and incompetence abounding (see "Riviera Beach struggles to overcome decades of divisiveness" http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/epaper/2006/07/02/m1a_RBnew1_0702.html), but what is indisputable is that densely populated beaches do not support large colonies of nesting sea turtles. Also indisputable is the fact that Mayor Brown views Singer Island as Riviera Beach's cash cow, to be milked for every last tax dollar that can be wrung out of it. When all you care about is putting up hotel-resort high rises for millionaires (who legally reside elsewhere and won't be able to vote no matter what their opinions are on preserving the environment), then you can't expect sea turtles to count for much. Every simpleton knows that politicians get reelected based on corporate donations, which in South Florida means real estate. Corporations, and therefore politicians, are interested in profits, not stewardship of environmental resources or the protection of endangered sea turtles.

 This slide show illustrates the issues condo owners face on the beach. The Ocean Mall, where they want to put up a hotel and shopping complex, is shown immediately after Wilma (it was torn down this week). The dune you see immediately in front of it would be covered by the new development. The photos of hurricane damage show how much the beach and the dunes are eroded. However bad it looks, many sea turtle nests can survive with as little as 6 inches of sand on them. However, once a sea wall is erected, the nesting beach is gone forever. The sea wall shown here popped up last winter without having gone through the required formal permit process. What happened is they got an emergency permit after Wilma and now the condo next door wants one, which is understandable given that their next door neighbors have put them at even greater risk when the water erodes the dune behind the sea wall. However, once the beach is armored like this, no sea turtles will nest. There are plans to put in groins to stop the beach erosion, but they won't be in place until 2008. In the meantime, luxury condos sprout up all around (the cheapest unit goes for $1.3 million).

The question that needs to be asked is, when you've paid over a million dollars for your condo, do you let prime sea turtle nesting beach stand in the way of erecting a sea wall in front of your condo, or do you just use your money to purchase the necessary political clout to get it done? You can't blame people for wanting to protect their property regardless of whether it should ever have been built in the first place. The bottom line is that you don't have to be unduly pessimistic to say that the future doesn't look too bright for the Singer Island sea turtles.