The Leatherback Project

As the loggerheads start saying ‘goodbye’ to the 2019 nesting season, greens continue to come ashore to nest! We officially broke 20,000 recorded nests this past week and currently have 20,109 total nests. Loggerheads still lead the way by a large margin (13,243) followed by greens (6,679) and leatherbacks (187). The LMC night crew only…

We begin with big news out of Juno Beach: We have officially broken the all time record for nests in a single season!!!! As of Saturday, August 3rd, we have recorded 19,198 total nests on our 9.5 miles of beaches, which beats the previous record set in 2017 of 19,085!! And with a few months…

As we experience the last few days in July, the greens are still nesting in full force, while the loggerheads are finishing up their last few nests. To date we have surpassed 18,000 nests on our 9.5 miles of beaches, 18,102 to be exact!! Loggerheads account for 12,581 of our nests, followed by greens with…

Green and loggerhead turtles continue to nest in full force for the night crew’s 5th week of field work. We have officially surpassed 16,000 total nests that span our Juno, Jupiter-Carlin, and Tequesta beaches!!! Loggerheads stand at 11,894 nests, greens have laid 4,553 nests, and we even had another leatherback nest on Jupiter-Carlin this week,…

As July rolls along, we are still on pace to have an exceptionally high nesting season. Currently there are 14,947 total nests the LMC Research Department has recorded across our Juno Beach, Jupiter, and Tequesta areas. Loggerheads account for the vast majority of nests with 11,030, followed by greens (3,733), and leatherbacks (184). And since…

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful and safe 4th of July week! With the rain that fell on Juno this past weekend, nesting activity for loggerheads and greens picked back up, giving the night crew ample opportunities to sample and tag. We received 2,449 nests this past week, bringing our total to 12,685. We have 9,711…

The loggerheads and greens are coming in waves at the moment here on Juno. Unfortunately due to the soft, dry sand from a lack of rain, many of them have false crawled, meaning they come up the beach but return without nesting. With that said, we have eclipsed 10,000 nests and stand at 10,236!!! We…

Now that the leatherback nesting season for the LMC night crew is over (though we still sample any that come ashore to nest), our attention has turned to the other two species that nest on Juno Beach: loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and greens (Chelonia mydas).  Based on last season’s fairly low numbers for loggerheads and greens,…

The final week of the 2019 leatherback nesting season for the LMC night crew has come to a close. We’ve had an absolute blast working with these magnificent creatures over the last 11 weeks and we’re all sad to see it end. The season has definitely started to wind down, as we only encountered one…

The second to last week of the night crew’s 2019 leatherback season is complete. Even though the calendar says their season should be winding down, the turtles definitely did not receive that message. We encountered 10 leatherbacks, bringing our total number of sampled females to 92, and we have seen all but two of them…