Caging Sea Turtle Nests

Attachments

2026-06-25_A_04.pdf

Marco’s beach is beginning to reflect the height of sea turtle season, dotted with caged sea turtle nests. Just underneath the warm sand, tiny sea turtles inside their fragile eggshells are counting the days to their awe-inspiring journey to the ocean.

The daily sea turtle monitors have been very busy protecting these nests, marking each nest with stakes, yellow caution tape, and a sign to provide protection and alert vehicular traffic and the public away from the nests. Monitors take a GPS reading for each nest location and for crawl and record this information in their data sheet for further evaluation.

The Marco Island nests are covered with a protected screen or a cage, and the two-by-four-inch screen openings are large enough to allow the exit of hatchlings but are small enough to prevent mammalian depredation, according to the Collier County Sea Turtle Protection Program. In addition, nest cages provide additional protection by preventing predators from digging under the screen as well as from the surface downward. All cages are observed daily for evidence of predation, but unfortunately, cages cannot protect nests from tidal inundations.

Nightly Beach Report – Artificial Lighting

According to the Collier County Sea Turtle Protection Program, “Artificial lighting continues to be the greatest human threat to emerging hatchlings. In 2025, for the five beaches monitored by Collier County, a total of 195 nests were affected by artificial lighting, with emerging hatchlings becoming disoriented as they attempted to make their way to the Gulf.”

For the month of May’s Nightly Beach Report, 46 building light violations were referred to Code Enforcement for follow-up. Nine sea turtle lighting violations are scheduled to appear at the Code Magistrate on June 30.

From May 1 through October 31, 2026, the City will continue to enforce Chapter 54, Article V, Sea Turtle Protection to reduce activities that may adversely affect nesting sea turtles and hatchlings. Enforcement efforts will primarily address lighting violations and prohibited manmade objects left on the beach after 9:00 PM.