Sea Turtle Nesting — Florida

Florida hosts more sea turtle nesting activity than any other state in the continental United States. Five species nest on Florida beaches: the loggerhead, green turtle, leatherback, hawksbill, and Kemp's ridley. All five are listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. According to FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI), Florida accounts for approximately 90 percent of the nests attributed to the Northwest Atlantic loggerhead aggregation — the largest such aggregation in the world. Florida's green turtle aggregation ranks as the second largest in the Western Atlantic Hemisphere, and the leatherback is documented as the only sea turtle species that nests regularly on the continental United States coastline.

The state's 825 miles of sandy shoreline, spanning subtropical and tropical climate zones along both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, provides nesting habitat across more than 30 counties. Because the health of Florida's beaches directly influences the global conservation status of these species, coastal governance decisions — including lighting ordinances, beach renourishment permits, and shoreline construction approvals — carry consequences that extend far beyond state borders. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) coordinates two systematic statewide monitoring programs that have generated continuous nesting records since 1989.

Sea turtle protection in Florida operates through an overlapping structure of federal and state law. At the federal level, marine turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. At the state level, Florida's Marine Turtle Protection Act (Florida Statutes § 379.2431) makes it unlawful to take, possess, disturb, mutilate, destroy, sell, transfer, molest, or harass marine turtles, their nests, or their eggs without specific authorization from FWC. This dual structure applies to scientific, educational, and conservation activities as much as to harmful ones — all direct interactions with turtles, nests, or hatchlings require a specific FWC permit.

Artificial beach lighting is among the primary documented threats to nesting success. Light from beachfront structures, roadways, and parking areas disorients nesting females — causing them to abort nesting attempts — and causes hatchlings to navigate away from the ocean. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has published a Model Lighting Ordinance for Sea Turtle Protection, specifying long-wavelength, downward-directed fixtures for coastal properties and prohibiting bonfires within nesting habitat during the nesting season. Brevard County enacted its own lighting restrictions for the May 1 through October 31 period in 1993, according to the Sea Turtle Preservation Society. In the Florida Keys, the Village of Islamorada defines its local nesting season as April 15 through October 31, with nesting concentrated on the Atlantic shoreline between mile markers 72 and 83.

For coastal planners and local governments, nesting beach habitat is a formal consideration in decisions on shoreline armoring, beach renourishment, and coastal construction permits administered through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. As of April 2026, The Invading Sea reported that proposed amendments to the federal Endangered Species Act in Congress are being flagged by Florida conservationists as a potential threat to the legal protections credited with reversing green turtle population decline and establishing Florida's loggerhead aggregation as the world's largest.

FWC's FWRI coordinates two complementary monitoring programs. The Statewide Nesting Beach Survey (SNBS) documents total distribution and abundance across Florida's coastline. The Index Nesting Beach Survey (INBS), operating since 1989, tracks long-term population trends using a standardized set of 27 core beaches; FWC reports that index counts represent approximately 52 percent of all known loggerhead nesting in Florida. The INBS recorded a loggerhead low of 28,876 nests in 2007 and a high of 71,009 nests in 2023 on those 27 beaches alone.

FWC's trend archive documents that green turtle nest counts have increased approximately eightyfold since standardized surveys began in 1989, with a five-year average of 30,785 clutches annually for the period 2018–2022. FWRI classifies loggerheads, green turtles, and leatherbacks as the three species that nest regularly in Florida, while hawksbill and Kemp's ridley nests occur infrequently and opportunistically. The five species follow a staggered seasonal calendar: leatherbacks arrive earliest, typically in March–April; loggerheads peak in June–July; and green turtles peak in July–August, timing that makes their clutches more vulnerable to late-season hurricane storm surges, as research published in PMC/NCBI documents.

The Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1991 and named after the late Dr. Archie Carr Jr., encompasses a 20.5-mile stretch of beach in Brevard and Indian River Counties between Melbourne Beach and Wabasso. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designates it as the most significant loggerhead nesting area in the world and the most significant green turtle nesting area in North America. The Sea Turtle Conservancy notes that partners in the refuge's conservation include the USFWS, the State of Florida, Brevard and Indian River Counties, and the Mellon Foundation.

The University of Central Florida's Marine Turtle Research Group has conducted continuous sea turtle monitoring in Brevard County since 1982 — predating the refuge itself. UCF and the USFWS have a formal agreement establishing a permanent conservation research facility at the Archie Carr refuge; UCF findings contributed to the refuge's creation in 1990. The University of Florida's Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research is another primary academic institution conducting long-term research on Florida's nesting populations.

NOAA Fisheries lists the Northwest Atlantic loggerhead distinct population segment as threatened under the ESA and identifies Peninsular Florida as one of only two aggregations globally where more than 10,000 females are documented nesting per year — the other being Oman. The Florida State Parks system protects over 100 miles of nesting beach statewide, forming a complementary network to the federal refuge system.

Sea turtle nesting is concentrated on Florida's Atlantic coast. Brevard County and the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge corridor consistently record the highest loggerhead and green turtle nest densities in the state. Martin County's 22 miles of coastline recorded 16,273 sea turtle nests in 2024, reflecting the density characteristic of the Indian River Lagoon–to–Palm Beach corridor. Indian River, Palm Beach, and Broward Counties also rank among the state's highest-volume nesting counties. Leatherback nesting, which requires deeper beach profiles, is distributed along the east coast from Palm Beach County northward.

On Florida's Gulf Coast, nesting is present but lower in density. Southwest Florida counties — including Lee, Collier, and Sarasota — host loggerhead nesting monitored through programs such as the Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Mote Marine Laboratory's Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program in Venice. Kemp's ridley and hawksbill nests are rare statewide and not regionally concentrated. In the Florida Keys, Islamorada documents nesting primarily on the Atlantic-facing shoreline between mile markers 72 and 83, with a locally defined season of April 15 through October 31.

Sea turtle nesting in Florida faces documented pressure from two intersecting climate-driven processes: rising sand temperatures and sea-level rise. Because sea turtles exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination, warmer incubation conditions produce higher proportions of female hatchlings. A 2024 study published in Global Change Biology, analyzing more than 110,000 nests from three Florida species — loggerhead, green turtle, and leatherback — found widespread climate-driven declines in incubation duration consistent with increasing feminization across all three populations. A December 2024 WUSF report noted that rising temperatures also reduce overall hatching success, compounding the sex-ratio concern.

FSU-led research published in October 2023 found that potential behavioral adaptations — such as shifting nesting timing — are unlikely to be sufficient on their own. Florida State University reported that models indicate turtles would need to nest between 20 and 191 days earlier, or between 54 and 180 days later, to avoid projected hatchling production losses — a range that exceeds biologically feasible adaptation timescales.

Sea-level rise poses a separate physical threat to nesting habitat. FSU research documented by EurekAlert projects that sea-level rise could submerge approximately 80 percent of the current nesting habitat predicted to retain suitable incubation climates, with loggerheads facing roughly a 10 percent decrease in suitable nesting areas in Florida. Beach renourishment programs administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection are directly relevant to the physical persistence of nesting habitat, as are coastal armoring decisions that affect sand supply and dune structure.

The 2023 nesting season produced a statewide record for loggerheads. UF/IFAS Extension Monroe County reported a statewide total of 133,941 loggerhead nests, approximately 30,000 above the long-term average and surpassing the previous record set in 2016. On the 27 INBS core index beaches, FWC recorded a high of 71,009 loggerhead nests that year. In 2024, statewide totals were 110,339 loggerhead nests, 14,312 green turtle nests, 1,800 leatherback nests, and 34 Kemp's ridley nests, according to Bradenton Magazine. The 2024 Kemp's ridley count of 34 set a species record for Florida, compared with 10 nests in 2023 and 8 in 2022, as FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported.

The 2025 season brought a new record for leatherback turtles. Palm Beach County Environmental Resources Management reported a statewide leatherback total of 2,022 confirmed nests. Loggerhead nesting on the 27 core index beaches exceeded 50,000 nests in 2025, according to FWC index data — a level described as returning to counts not consistently observed since the 1990s. The statewide loggerhead total for 2025 was reported by FOX 4 at 100,951, with Kemp's ridley nests at 12 confirmed plus 21 pending genetic confirmation.