The Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island put together
this information and took photographs documenting the threat a
simple lounge chair can cause.
During the 1998 sea turtle nesting
season, lounge chairs were a factor in 64 turtle emergences,
resulting in 52 false crawls and 12 nests.
Debbie Sobel and other volunteers from the Sea Turtle
Conservation League of Singer Island took pictures and documented
every incident involving lounge chairs left on the beach and their
effect on nesting attempts made by sea turtles on Singer Island,
Florida. However, this problem isn't restricted to just Singer
Island. It occurs on turtle nesting beaches throughout the
state.
What should be done?
Lounge chairs and rental boats that are
portable could easily be removed from the beach area at night.
Heavy wooden lounge chairs should be removed completely during the
nesting season, or at least spaced apart 6 feet from side-to-side.
Multiple rows of lounge chairs behind hotels also result in a lack
of suitable nesting area.
If chairs are to remain on the beach, density should be no more
than one row during the nesting season. Furthermore, old lounge
chairs and other structures considered "trash" must be removed from
the beach instead of stacked along the dune to rot.
Besides creating obstacles for nesting turtles and hatchlings,
discarded lounge chairs and furniture also pollute the beaches and
waters, entangling turtles like the Kemp's ridley pictured below.
It was found dead on Bonita Beach in Lee County.
To learn more about the Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer
Island visit their Web
site.
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