BRADENTON BEACH, Fla. — Every year, thousands of visitors come to these gorgeous beaches along Anna Maria Island. Locals and visitors alike can see the hundreds of marked sea turtle nests along the shoreline.
“I was really excited and hoped to see some while I was here,” Delondra James said.
James, visiting Anna Maria Island for the first time from St. Louis, spotted all the nests while enjoying Coquina Beach. “I have never got to see that.”
Sea turtles generally lay their eggs at night and then follow the light of the night sky glistening off the water back to the gulf. But one sea turtle became disoriented last week by new flashing lights from a crosswalk near the Coquina Beach north boat ramp, crossed into the road, and got hit by a car
“She was alive at the time and passed on the scene, which was also even more heartbreaking,” Kristen Mazzarella said.
Mazzarella, executive director of the Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, said she was devastated when she got the early morning call.
“It’s a big loss to the sea turtle population when we lose a female because females will nest five to seven times in a nesting season.”
This female sea turtle had just laid a nest, but she had more eggs, which she would have laid later this summer had she not been killed.
Sea turtles are attracted to light but generally ignore the red end of the spectrum, Mazzarella explained. Local regulations therefore require lights to have some kind of shield or be red or rose colored. The Florida Department of Transportation installed these crosswalk lights this past winter, but the white lights had not been activated until last month.
“I let them know about this incident, and the very next day, they shut off all the crosswalk lights,” Mazzarella said.
There are already 423 sea turtle nests on the island this nesting season. Turtle Watch hopes this turtle’s death will spread awareness about danger of bright lights and what the public can do to save sea turtles
“It’s nesting season, so what we say is leave the beach clean, dark, and flat when you leave,” Mazzarella said. “And leave the beach at night for the turtles, so you don’t disturb the turtles accidentally.”
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