Each March, sea turtle nesting season begins with the females’ slow yet determined scooch onto Florida’s shores, shoveling away sand with her speckled fins, digging a hole to lay eggs.
The season peaks around late spring to summer before tapering off in October, meaning Florida’s thousand-mile stretch of coastlines becomes home to hundreds of thousands of potential hatchlings during the worst of hurricane season. Now, those nurseries are threatened by increasingly stronger storms.
Hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30, overlapping with the bulk of the sea turtle nesting window. The 2024 season saw the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record when Beryl formed in July. Later in the season, Hurricanes Helene and Milton made landfall in Florida within 13 days of each other, devastating the state’s Gulf Coast.
Heavy rains, winds and storm surges pile on the threats to sea turtles. Nests can drown or wash away — as hundreds did after Hurricane Debby in August — while the erosion of beaches may leave future sea turtles with less area to nest.