Gustav buries southwest Florida turtle nests

From an article by Zac Anderson in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

Hurricane Gustav's eye stayed far from Southwest Florida, but the storm's waves and surge dampened the region's best sea turtle nesting season in years.

From Anna Maria Island to Charlotte Harbor, turtle volunteers and scientists are reporting hundreds of swamped, buried and washed-out nests.

Many of the underlying eggs may have drowned or washed away, experts say, a tough setback for a turtle season that had seen nests leap to roughly 3,300 in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties, compared with about 2,000 a year ago.

Despite the recent losses, experts say the 2008 turtle nesting season has been unexpectedly good.

"There was a strong trend down since 1998 so this summer was a wild card," said Wilma Katz, who helps coordinate turtle watch volunteers on Manasota Key in Englewood.

"Regardless of whether the storm takes some nests out, the fact that we had a lot of nests to begin with gives us a lot of reason to hope."

Manasota Key is the top nesting destination for sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. A strong increase in nests on the key is a positive indicator for the state, said Beth Brost, a sea turtle expert with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.