Grant: 24-049E
Project Title: Expansion and Continuation of the Sea Turtle Protection Zone in Palm Beach County
Project Manager: Valerie Nicole Tovar
Organization: Loggerhead Marinelife Center (Non-Profit Organization)
Grant Amount: $36,750.00
Completion Date:
Summary: Each year, from March 1 - October 31, tens of thousands of marine turtles migrate to Florida's beaches to lay their eggs. The majority of sea turtle nesting on Florida's beaches occurs within five counties, including Palm Beach County (PBC) on the Atlantic coast. Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) biologists monitor a 15 km stretch of beach in northern PBC that hosts an average of 17,000 sea turtle nests (~12% of all nesting in Florida) of three species annually since 2014. During nesting season, sea turtles spend an increased amount of time at the surface of the water close to shore, where they are susceptible to boat strike injuries. In 2021, LMC and the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research (ACCSTR) launched Florida's first pilot Sea Turtle Protection Zone (STPZ), which aims to work collaboratively with the boating community to provide science-based recommendations and best practices to prevent harmful vessel interactions with sea turtles during nesting season. Currently, the STPZ is established across 12 miles of PBC coastline, extending one mile offshore from the Jupiter Inlet to the Lake Worth Inlet. The goal of this proposal is to expand the voluntary STPZ to all of PBC, encompassing 47 miles of coastline, from the Jupiter Inlet to the Boca Raton Inlet, in collaboration with Gumbo Limbo Nature Center (GLNC). The STPZ has been conducted in five phases and in order to expand the STPZ, we plan to continue with phases four and five, which include a re-launching of the educational STPZ outreach campaign and evaluation of the effectiveness of the STPZ by conducting post-implementation boat speed data within the STPZ and facilitation of boater surveys to measure boater compliance, respectively. These data will be used to gauge the effectiveness of the STPZ, while simultaneously providing further insight into successful conservation approaches within the boating community.
Results: