Meet the Eagles protecting sea turtle nests in Southwest Florida
- Laurie Dionne Babcock
- College of Arts and Sciences
- Contributors: Rob Salazar, Video
6 – minute read
By October each year, the last sea turtle hatchlings to be born on Southwest Florida’s beaches vanish into the Gulf, leaving behind only faint tracks in the sand. But this year, they also left a season’s worth of data for researchers at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Matt Ware, an assistant professor of conservation biology in the College of Arts & Sciences, led a team of six FGCU students in field-based research into coastal ecosystem protection. Focusing on sea turtles, Ware collaborated with state agencies in two state parks to give his students hands-on experience in ecological monitoring and habitat stewardship.
Looking beyond the shoreline, his work bridges classroom theory with real-world impact, emphasizing the interconnectedness of human activity and wildlife sustainability.
A bridge between the classroom and real-world impact
As part of a summer internship, Ware’s students surveyed sea turtle nests in Lee County’s Cayo Costa State Park and Charlotte County’s Don Pedro Island State Park in collaboration with personnel from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The surveys are part of statewide efforts to track sea turtle numbers, the threats they face and the conservation management strategies that improve the nesting environment and success of the species.
From May through September, Ware’s team identified loggerhead and green sea turtle crawls, excavated nests post-hatching and recorded data on egg viability and hatchling success. The work included monitoring environmental factors such as predator threats from coyotes and ghost crabs, water levels and light pollution, contributing to broader conservation efforts along Southwest Florida’s coast.
“Don Pedro recorded 154 loggerhead and 70 green nests this year — translating to over 5,600 loggerhead and almost 2,000 green hatchlings,” Ware says. “Cayo Costa had 529 loggerhead and 18 green nests producing almost 28,000 loggerhead and over 1,000 green hatchlings.”
Ware’s six interns — including Bella Fesko and Posie Farrelly on Cayo Costa and Cameron Scoles and Colin Stansbury on Don Pedro — learned the techniques and fundamental theories underlying conservation management in the classroom and then applied them in the field.
“It gives them a lot of that hands-on experience that can really help craft a lot of their college experience and where they ultimately want to go with their career,” says Ware.
Another of his interns is biology major Jasmine Burden. The Bradenton native frequently visited Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota with her family and volunteered at animal humane societies.
“I’ve grown up working with animals my whole life,” Burden says. “Being able to give back to the community and the environment again has been just such an amazing experience.”
Marine science major Noelle Eyres grew up on the Jersey Shore in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. She considers working with sea turtles a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.
“This really gave me insight of how ecosystems work and how I can be a help to marine life,” she says.
Under the direction of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Eyres responded to injured or dead turtles washed ashore during her internship. She’s planning on a career in marine rehabilitation, and the experience gave her a firsthand look at those efforts.
“It just made me want to help animals even more,” Eyres says.
The interconnectedness of human activity and wildlife sustainability
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), six sea turtle species are found in U.S. waters and all are listed and federally protected under the Endangered Species Act. Southwest Florida is home to the five species that nest on U.S. coastal beaches; loggerhead and green are listed as threatened, while leatherback, Kemp’s ridley and hawksbill are endangered.
“We have a number of sea turtle species here that all require our protection,” Ware says. “That gives us a tremendous responsibility to appropriately manage those ecosystems that they rely on and that we use every day.”
While wrapping up research on Cayo Costa for the season, he called the island’s state park “a great example” of a sea turtle habitat that humans also enjoy for recreation and tourism. The 9-mile-long barrier island is a popular spot for boaters, paddlers and beachgoers.
“We like these nice pristine beaches. So do sea turtles. We like fishing offshore for fun and for food. The sea turtles use those same resources for a lot of the same purposes,” Ware says.
“Having healthy ecosystems provides a lot of services to us as a society that we generally take for granted — clean air, clean water, recreational opportunities. When we can provide a healthy system for turtles, we’re also providing a healthy system for ourselves.”
Their breeding strategy is a numbers game, Ware says. “Optimistically, about one in 1,000 hatchlings survives to adulthood. Pessimistically, one in 10,000.”
According to a 2025 NOAA review, most sea turtle populations are rebounding worldwide, thanks to decades of conservation efforts. The study found more turtles nesting at beaches with stronger protections in place — like those the FGCU team engaged in.
“We want to continue that trend. We want to keep that stewardship, that sustainability, keep that motivation going to keep providing these services — to the sea turtles, to our beach environments, to conservation management as a whole,” Ware says.
“FGCU is greatly positioned both in physical location and the opportunities that we provide through the faculty and the staff and the students to get hands-on with that conservation, to help keep that motivation going.”
