This is a true example that at Carr the loggers have struggled to emerge from a long-term slump. This year, they defied the odds, dodging the BP blowout, a frigid winter and wash back from storms, to post 12,300 nests at the refuge. That’s up almost 3,000, or 40 percent, from last year. Llew Ehrhart, a University of Central Florida professor emeritus of biology, who studies sea turtles, said that it is a little hard to say exactly what it means, but there is certainly some room for cautious optimism now.
He monitors turtle nesting at the Carr refuge saying that logger nesting at the refuge peaked in 1998 at a record 17,729 nests, then dropped six years in a row to about 7,600 nests in 2004.
The dip and ongoing threats from commercial fishing prompted the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this year to propose switching some of the logger’s population segments from “threatened” to “endangered.” Some worry that would result in the federal government prohibiting popular nighttime turtle walks in which people watch loggers nest.
Loggers and other sea turtles got a lift from NASA and FedEx this summer. Many of the relocated turtles were loggerheads that began nesting on beaches from Orange Beach, Ala., to Panama City Beach.
