Meet Therese, Brianna, and Windy: OCEARCH Tracking Florida Loggerhead Sea Turtles During Nesting Season

Writer: Paul Dolan
Published: Updated:
sea turtle
Therese, Brianna and Windy. CREDIT: OCEARCH

We are well into the 2024 sea turtle nesting season, and OCEARCH is now monitoring nine turtles that have pinged on the Florida coastline.

According to OCEARCH, eight loggerhead sea turtles and one hawksbill/loggerhead hybrid turtle pinged between Deerfield Beach and Titusville between Wednesday and Friday.

Therese, one of the loggerhead sea turtles, pinged Friday morning just before 6.

Therese is a 216-pound adult female sea turtle, just over 3-feet long. She was originally tagged on April 25 and has swam 937 miles since then.

Therese laid her first nest of the 2024 nesting season on Juno Beach.

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Therese the loggerhead sea turtle. CREDIT: OCEARCH

The data shows that Therese swims back and forth between the St. Lucie Inlet and the Lake Worth Inlet.



Brianna is another loggerhead sea turtle that weighs almost 300 pounds and is 3 feet 5 inches long.

She was tagged on April 29 and has swam 1,264 miles around the East Coast of Florida.

Brianna also laid her first nest of the 2024 nesting season on Juno Beach.

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Brianna. CREDIT: OCEARCH

Brianna pinged at 9:42 p.m. Wednesday night in the Jupiter Inlet.

She has traveled as far south as North Palm Beach and as far north as Hobe Sound.

Windy is a big loggerhead sea turtle weighing 916 pounds and is over five feet long.

She was originally tagged back on April 19, 2023, and traveled as far north as off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

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Windy, a loggerhead sea turtle. CREDIT: OCEARCH

In the 14 months Windy has been tagged, she has swam 10,446 miles.

Researchers have seen Windy nesting nine times. Perhaps returning to Florida in the heart of nesting season means she has more eggs to lay.

Windy pinged off the coast of Cocoa Beach just before 6 a.m. on Friday.

Click here to learn more about OCEARCH and see all the animals they track.

Click here to learn more about sea turtle nesting season from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation is also monitoring sea turtles during nesting season.

According to the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, 373 loggerhead nests and one leatherback nest have been identified on Sanibel.

Researchers have also documented 113 loggerhead nests on Captiva.

If you have any questions, call the SCCF Sea Turtle hotline at 978-728-3663.

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