Beach fun threatens turtles
PHOTO PROVIDED BY COASTAL WILDLIFE CLUB
Pam Lundeen, a Coastal Wildlife Club sea turtle patrol volunteer, is 5 feet, 6 inches tall. Here, she stands in the center of a huge "sand spa" dug on Manasota Key. Deep holes dug and left on Gulf beaches can prove a threat to nesting sea turtles, hatchlings and people walking the beach at night.
Digging holes and building sand castles can make a day at the beach a day of fun. But a hole dug on the beach that is left unfilled can turn into a trap for nesting sea turtles crawling onto the beach at night and for their hatchlings crawling at night into the Gulf. Coastal Wildlife Club sea turtle patrol volunteers discovered a mammoth hole dug on Manasota Key in the shape of what the volunteers called a “spa.” The diameter of the sand spa was six feet or more, and it was dug to the depth of more than two feet.
