A Turtley Awesome Morning
By Kate Turk
On the morning of July 1, I had the pleasure of riding along with Melanie Waite for a Turtle Patrol to check on and mark off sea turtle nests along Pensacola Beach.
The turtle team patrols every morning, rain or shine, even amid thunderstorm and tornado warnings, from May 1 through September.
We met at 5 a.m. at Public Works and quickly loaded into an ATV — we had to be rolling out onto the sand before first light to beat any beachgoers who might disturb tracks and nests made overnight.
Waite, who has been patrolling Pensacola Beach since 1993, kicked the tires, flipped through a yellow notebook detailing any nest sightings since her last patrol, and loaded the back with stakes to block off nests in case we found any.
She told me that Tuesday seemed to be the nesting day this summer, so we might be in luck! Then the ATV jarringly rumbled to life and we set off – the first and only vehicle on the beach road in the dark early morning.
As we turned onto the sand and began our patrol, we seemed to be the only sign of life on the beach apart from a couple skimmers dipping into the waves.
In the passenger seat, I was on the side closest to the water, which Waite explained is the best for spotting turtle tracks — so I should keep my eyes peeled!
She told me to look for patterns in the sand and showed photos of turtle tracks — which to me looked an awful lot like the lines left behind by trucks and ATVs like the one we were in. I likely wouldn’t have thought anything of the marks without the photos — all the more reason the patrol is so necessary.
As we ambled along, checking on marked nests, the beach seemed to come to life before our eyes — the lone skimmers were joined with flocks of gulls, ghost crabs scuttled about, herons flew in and out of our path, and people began filing onto the beach.
Those cute little crabs playing peekaboo in the sand— Waite told me — are actually the biggest predators of sea turtle eggs on the island.
Luckily, the nests seemed unharmed, and we found no signs of predation by crabs or disturbance from people. But Waite pointed to a nest too close to the water, likely to be washed away by the tide. One nest had already been lost this season.
Waite said the patrollers used to be allowed to move the nests away from the waterline to save them, but that the rules keep changing and they are no longer permitted to.
The turtle patrol folk are very protective of every single nest on the island, Waite added, since Pensacola Beach does not see a lot of turtles.
Waite narrowly veered around a large hole someone had dug in the sand, and stressed the importance of leaving no trace. Holes are not only dangerous to vehicles including Public Works, lifeguards and turtle patrol, but turtles can easily become stuck in them.
We reached the county line and stopped to say hello to a fellow turtle patrol ATV turning around from the opposite direction, and started back.
As we looped around, I asked Waite what else people could do to help turtles, besides filling in holes. She talked about using only red or amber lights on the beach, not leaving lights on after dark, and avoiding plastic — especially bags which can resemble jellyfish and end up ingested by turtles.
I also learned more about the turtles we were searching for. All of the turtles nesting on Pensacola Beach once hatched from this very island— they imprint on the beach when they are born and return home every second or third summer to nest.
Most of the nests belong to Loggerheads, Florida’s most common sea turtle, which can grow up to 375 lbs and live for more than 60 years, according to a pamphlet Waide had on hand.
We were rapidly approaching our final stopping point, and I had just resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be lucky enough to find a turtle nest that day when, suddenly, Waite spotted something.
Just a few hundred yards away from the end of our patrol, there it was — a wide track, like a big flat tire with little footprints along the sides, weaved up from the sea, circled a little mound of fluffy sand, and curled back into the water.
Excited, we quickly turned the ATV off and went to go investigate the tracks. As we circled around, a curious civilian approached to ask if it was made by a turtle, and Waite showed us how the lack of a tail drag and little asymmetrical footprints (or rather, flippers) indicated that this was a Loggerhead.
She pointed to the depression of the sand to show how you can see the direction the turtle was moving, and to the unassuming mound of sand, where the sea turtle eggs are camouflaged by the mother kicking up sand with her flippers.
We got to work making a perimeter to protect her eggs. Waite set a stake into the ground three feet behind the nest, then handed me a mallet and told me to start pounding. We hammered a rectangle of stakes surrounding the nest and tied it off with red cord, and she let me put my initials under hers just below the “Do Not Disturb” sign stapled to the front post.
Waite took measurements of the width of the turtle, how close the nest was to high tide to assess if it was in danger, and put a stake far up in the dune in case the water upset the perimeter. We logged the information into a turtle-tracking tablet, and we were done! The ninth sea turtle nest of the summer was found and safely blocked off.
Mission complete, we headed back to Public Works. I learned that the incubation time for Loggerheads is typically 60 days, so the nest we just protected should hatch near the end of August, with potentially 100+ turtles hatching if the nest stays healthy and protected.
The Loggerhead moms should swim peacefully knowing that Turtle Patrol is always keeping an eye on their little ones.
NEST COUNT
Escambia activities are done under FWC Permits MTP-25-032 and 25-202.
Nest Update 7/3/2025, loggerhead unless otherwise noted.
PB 10 (-1)
PK Escambia 5
PK State Park 2
Gulf Islands 37 (1 green)
Navarre Beach 8 (1 green)