She Really Digs Turtles

A typical day finds Eve Haverfield clad in jeans and ankle-deep in sand and muck, foraging for hidden treasures along the beach. She combs the wet sand with growing anticipation, stopping only to acknowledge passersby.

“I think I feel a nose poking through the sand,” she says, excitedly.

Sure enough, the nose—belonging to a sea turtle hatchling—soon emerges. Haverfield finishes digging it out of its nest, and after careful examination, releases the hatchling into the sea.

Hers is a habit that’s caught on in Fort Myers Beach, Fla. (pop. 6,561). Dubbed “the turtle lady” by locals, Haverfield is the founder of Turtle Time Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the protection of loggerhead sea turtles—an endangered species in rapid decline. Established in 1989, the group of 80 volunteers monitors sea turtle activity on Fort Myers Beach and nearby communities.

Two such volunteers, teenager Megan Easterbrook and her mother, Diane, have incorporated “turtle watching” into her homeschooling curriculum.

Megan’s involvement began when she was just 4 years old. On a beach walk with her mother, she saw Haverfield digging up a turtle nest. “Eve explained all about the turtles,” she says. “She let me count the eggs.” From that point, Megan was hooked.

For nine years now, Megan and her mother have walked their “turtle zone” three mornings a week.

A mother loggerhead turtle, weighing 250 to 400 pounds, will crawl ashore at night to lay her pliable eggs the size of pingpong balls—laboriously digging with her hind flippers until a deep cavity is prepared. She then covers the deposited eggs with sand and returns to the sea.

“If we find tracks, we check to see if there’s a nest,” Megan explains. “If it is a nest, we have to mark it. We get about four stakes with yellow tape to keep people away.

“Sixty to 65 days later we will come back and watch the nest every night and wait for them to hatch,” she says. “If we’re lucky, we’ll see about 100 tiny hatchlings head to the water’s edge.”

Baby turtles about 2 inches long hatch and emerge at night, instinctively crawling in the brightest direction—which in the natural world is toward the ocean. Development of Florida’s beaches, however, has made the inland brighter through artificial light. As a result, many hatchlings crawl the wrong direction and perish from dehydration or predators.

Haverfield and her group check on loggerhead nests daily during the May through August nesting season. Collected data reveals population, distribution of nests, nesting patterns, and the success rates of hatchings.

Haverfield’s devotion to sea turtles began 23 years ago, when she moved to Florida from Canada. “I was walking along the beach,” she explains, “and I found these interesting tracks. I investigated until I found out what was making them.”

Weather can be a problem for sea turtles, and the 2001 season was particularly harsh. Storms destroyed an estimated 6,000 potential hatchlings in Florida, where 90 percent of the world’s loggerheads nest. But nature isn’t the greatest threat.

“Sea turtles have survived it for millions of years,” Haverfield says.

The real problem is civilization. Pollution, beach litter, loss of natural habitat, entanglement in shrimp nets, hunting, and artificial lights near beaches all contribute to the decline of sea turtles.

Haverfield encourages home and business owners to shield the beach from light during nesting season, or to use yellow-spectrum lights the turtles won’t follow, such as low-pressure sodium vapor lights in street lamps. As a result, fewer hatchlings follow artificial light away from the ocean. It’s estimated that her work has saved turtles by the thousands.

Haverfield received a 1998 Eckerd 100 Salute to Women award, and in May 2001, the county commissioners of Lee County, Fla., proclaimed that May 1 will forever be known as Turtle Time Day in Lee County.

“When you help turtles, you are ultimately helping people,” Haverfield explains. “When you preserve beach ecology—assisting in providing cleaner beaches, cleaner water, and a better ecosystem—you are helping mankind as well as the turtles.”

Kimberly Ripley is a writer from Portsmouth, N.H.

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