Nesting Surveys… Why aren’t all nests marked?
Our Turtle House/Education Center, hotlines, volunteers, and members get asked repeatedly “why isn’t the nest marked?”
Today we will answer that question… sort of!
It honestly depends on which permitted group is surveying the beach. Many of our gorgeous miles of beach are surveyed by UCF on their ATVs. UCF has their methodology of collecting the data, just like we do on our stretch of beach!
We survey about two miles of beachfront in Cocoa Beach daily. No, we do not mark every nest! As a rule of thumb, we mark 1/5th of the nests. There are a lot of factors to marking nests, such as what species, if it’s in a public park, etc. We use GPS coordinates and record each nest daily.
So next time you see an “unmarked” nest, don’t worry! Just because you don’t see a stake like the one below does not mean it isn’t recorded. Sometimes you’ll see an ATV track or shuffle mark to know it’s been recorded.
