Sea turtles breaking nesting records in Keys

All signs point to the ongoing sea-turtle nesting season in the Florida Keys as a loggerhead baby bonanza.

“This season has seen some of the highest nesting counts in the Keys in a number of years,” Sue Schaf, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Con- servation Commission, said Friday. “In general, it’s been great.”

“In Key West, a loggerhead nested at the Pier House [Resort], which is very unusual,” she said. “Smathers Beach has seen a lot of nesting.”

Initial reports along Sea Oats Beach and the adjacent Sunset Beach on Lower Matecumbe Key, which usually get some nests, indicate 2016 “has been one of the best season in for that area,” Schaf said.

In the Dry Tortugas, the most active area for Keys turtle nesting, loggerheads seem to be going for a record, National Park Service biologist Kayla Nimmo said earlier this month.

“We have had 113 loggerhead turtle nests on Loggerhead Key [as of Aug. 3], which is higher than in any previous years,” years Nimmo said. “I think have set a new record.”

Loggerheads may dig three or four nests per season, Schaf said. Typically nests hatch about 50 days after eggs are laid.

Last year, green sea turtles set a Dry Tortugas National Park record 147 nests. That number has been much lower in 2016, as we may