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How You Can Help Sea Turtles

What You Can Do

• Keep lights near the beaches off or shielded from May through October. Artificial lighting from buildings or flashlights confuses nesting females and hatchlings. Disoriented by light, baby turtles wander away from the water and die.
• Keep the beach and water free of litter. Sea turtle deaths have been due to trash such as balloons, plastic bags, and styrofoam mistaken for food.
• Remove furniture and other items from the beach at night. These obstacles may cause a female turtle to return to the water without laying her eggs. They may also block a hatchling’s route to the water causing it to remain on the beach and dehydrate.
• Stay clear of sea turtles and any marked nesting areas. It is a federal offense to disturb or interfere with a nest. It is also illegal to disturb a nesting turtle with lights or noise. It is against the law to have in your possession eggs or any part of a turtle, such as skull, bones, or carapace or to retain any threatened or endangered sea turtle hatchlings.
• Honor the leash law. All dogs on the beach must be on a leash and cannot be allowed to disturb nesting turtles or hatchlings.
• If you find lost hatchlings, please call the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation at 472-2329 and a licensed volunteer will pick up the turtles. In the meantime, place them in a dry container with a little moist sand in the bottom and hold them in a shaded area.
• If you see a stranded turtle, check to see if there are orange marks painted on its shell. If so, this stranding has already been reported to the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation’s sea turtle program. If this is a new stranding, call Sea Turtle Coordinator Amanda Bryant at 239/470-3360, Monday – Friday. On weekends, report the stranding to the Sanibel Police at 239/472-3111.
• Adopt your own nest to help defray the costs of SCCF’s Sea Turtle Research and Monitoring Program.