Discovering the Sea Turtles of the Suncoast

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - A wooden stake and a strip of tape mark something most beachgoers never see on Suncoast beaches — a sea turtle nest buried in the sand.“Well, this means that we’re very fortunate that sea turtles use their beaches for nesting sites,” said Armando Ubeda, Florida Sea Grant agent with UF/IFAS Extension. “That means there’s a nest, sea turtle nest, under those inside that square. And it’s marked, so to protect the nest.”Two months undergroundSea turtle eggs spend two months underground before they begin to crack. Hatchlings use their flippers to push sand down as they try to reach the surface.Ubeda said the hatchlings help each other along the way.“It’s kind of like an elevator effect, they call it,” Ubeda said. “So they help each other and they crawl on top of each other.”Once hatchlings break the surface, they crawl toward open water guided by instinct.“They go for whatever glow they can see on the horizon,” Ubeda said. “Normally, that’s the open sea.”When instinc