Sea turtle are recovering on Fort Myers Beach after Hurricane Ian

Sea turtles, beach berms and shore birds are interconnected and need help after Hurricane Ian.

After a rough beginning, the sea turtles’ nesting season is going great. In May, sea turtle tracks were seen on the beach, crossing over debris before returning to the water. These tracks are referred to as a “false crawl.”

There is progress on the shores of Fort Myers Beach, in the sand, the sea life and for the birds flying through the sky.

A month ago, things didn’t look as pristine as they did on this first day of June. Remnants of Hurricane Ian’s wrath remained visible and felt by Southwest Florida wildlife.

WINK News spoke with Chadd Chustz, a Fort Myers Beach environmental project manager, about the conditions on the beach.

“We got off to a rough start,” Chustz said. “We had that false crawl where the sea turtle crawled up into the debris and the wet sand and didn’t like what she found, so she went back.”

Chustz told WINK News, since then, the turtles have created 20 nests, and eight of them are in the freshly laid sand berm.

“It’s given it a lot of elevation, so that helps keep the eggs dry when we have a big downpour like we did last night,” Chustz said.

The new sand was trucked in from Immokalee. It covers, but doesn’t erase, the sand that held firm during the hurricane. It’s perhaps a sign that new beginnings are often built upon the past, and that there is hope in the future.

“We have about 15,000 shoreline feet laid so far out of the 20,000; and what’s remaining is mostly down south where the birds are nesting, so we’re just letting them do their thing down there,” Chustz said.

The Little Estero Island Critical Wildlife Area is down there.

“It’s one of the biggest bird rookeries for shorebirds in the state of Florida,” Chustz said.

Marked off for their protection, FWC had a high count of more than 700 black skimmers.

“The Snowy pullovers are doing really well, which is really important. There’s not many of them left,” Chustz said. “I think we had three or four of those nests and at least a few of the chicks have fledged already.”

Once shorebird nesting season ends in September, Fort Myers Beach will decide what to do with the sand in that area.

After Ian, normalcy was seen only on the horizon. All this time later, we can look across the shoreline and see how far we’ve come. While Ian did a number on Fort Myers Beach, there are now visible signs of recovery.