And many manatees have returned to North Florida and South Georgia in search of less tropical water. Congratulations if you’re among the lucky ones who glimpsed the sea cows either in the wild or in the warm waters of FPL’s Manatee Lagoon at its Riviera Beach power plant, where the gentle marine mammals congregated during our comparatively few cold days this winter.
But while boaters may see fewer manatees, they now have to look out for our treasured spring arrivals — sea turtles coming here to lay eggs on the same beaches where they themselves were born.
While sea turtle season is usually March 1 to Oct. 31, the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton happily reported finding its first turtle visitor on Feb. 22.
“Exciting news!” its biologists posted on Facebook. “Today our team marked the first leatherback nest of the 2025 season in Boca Raton. … How many do you think we’ll get this year?”
Highland Beach wasn’t far behind.
“This morning we marked our first Leatherback nest,” the Highland Beach Sea Turtle Team said on Facebook on March 6.
Joanne Ryan, who leads the team, said false crawls by mama turtles, when they climb up on the sand but return to the ocean without laying eggs, have been consistently higher in South County the past couple of years.
“This is how everyone can help the sea turtles have a successful nesting season,” she said. “Lights out, leave nothing on the beach, maintain your distance.”
Another threat to sea turtles is plastic pollution in the ocean. Those party cups we drink from won’t disintegrate in our lifetimes; they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Scientists first called these bits “microplastics” and now realize there are even smaller pieces: “nanoplastics.”
Something to think about: While plastic bits are increasing everywhere and can fatally clog a sea turtle’s digestive system, nanoplastics are now showing up in larger concentrations in people’s organs.
In a recent article in Nature Medicine, “researchers examined micro- and nanoplastic (MNP) contamination in brain, liver, and kidney tissue samples collected between 2016 and 2024. In short: People with dementia had up to ten times the amount of microplastics in their brain tissue than those without dementia. Both liver and brain tissues collected in 2024 had significantly higher concentrations of MNPs than those collected in 2016, with the concentration of plastics in brains increasing by about 50% over the past 8 years.”
So please, pick up any plastics when you leave the beach. Reuse or recycle them.
And one last “going,” for those of you who get The Coastal Star thrown in your driveway: This issue is the last to be delivered that way. Coming next month, if you live in a single-family home, you’ll get your copy in your mailbox, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. It will be a welcome change if you’ve ever had your newspaper drenched by a summer rainstorm.
— Steve Plunkett, Managing Editor
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