‘Major’ sargassum buildup could also put crimp in turtle season‘s fast start
Beachgoers in Lantana struggle to find seaweed-free spots to set up chairs or put down blankets in late May. Piles of sargassum washed ashore in South County, with a record amount forecast by summer. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Jane Musgrave
Mother Nature isn’t kind to baby sea turtles.
In a year that is poised to produce a record number of the tiny marine creatures, nature has also sent a bumper crop of seaweed that threatens their survival.
“If the seaweed is piled up a foot or two above the nest, it could make it hard for them to get out,” said Kaleigh Gucker, outreach coordinator for Sea Turtle Adventures, which monitors turtle nests along a three-mile stretch of beach in Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and southern Ocean Ridge.
The seaweed — technically called sargassum — has confounded beach-lovers for weeks. And it’s going to get worse, according to marine scientists at the University of South Florida, who are monitoring the ever-moving mass that in late May stretched some 4,000 miles, from the Gulf coast of Louisiana to the northern coast of Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean.
“The year of 2026 is set to be another major sargassum year and likely to be a record year by summer 2026,” they wrote in a bulletin on April 30.
Turtle-watchers, who are celebrating what may be a record number of turtle nests along most beaches in southern Palm Beach County and beyond, say they are hoping the predictions are wrong.
“It comes and goes,” said David Anderson, who, as sea turtle conservation coordinator at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton, knows such dire forecasts can fizzle. “We may see some relief in a few weeks when the winds change direction and keep it offshore.”
But, like Gucker, he acknowledged that if sargassum keeps washing ashore, it will do more than simply ruin a day at the beach for people trying to beat the heat.
“Little baby hatchlings struggle to get through it,” he said. “The longer they are out there the greater chance they will get exhausted or get picked off by predators.”
Even without having to navigate through deep, tight-knit mounds of sargassum, the odds are against the hatchlings. Only about 1 in 1,000 make it to adulthood, according to the World Wildlife Federation.
Oddly, sargassum is both their curse and their salvation. A clump of sargassum provides them shelter and food as it carries them on their treacherous journey to the open ocean. Recent research spearheaded by scientists at the University of Central Florida suggest the hatchlings are headed to the Sargasso Sea.
The only sea in the world not bordered by land, the 2 million-square-mile area east of Bermuda is a haven for many sea animals, including turtles, who feed off its sargassum until they are old enough to return to land to lay eggs. It is considered a sea because it is ecologically unique from the rest of the Atlantic Ocean and is contained by four massive ocean currents — the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic, Canary, and North Equatorial currents.
A sea turtle nest is marked off at South Inlet Park in Boca. If the sargassum gets too deep, hatchlings will find it difficult to reach the ocean.
Turtle nesting up
With more nests along Boca Raton’s five-mile stretch of beach than in 2012, when the city’s existing records were set, Anderson said he is hoping the inundation of sargassum abates soon. The peak hatching season typically runs from late July to September.
While crews in Delray Beach, Boca Raton and other municipalities, or private landowners along the coast, rake the seaweed daily, it still piles up, he said.
As of May 21, Anderson’s crews had logged 239 nests, mostly loggerheads. That is up substantially from last year when numbers were down statewide.
Most telling, Anderson said, is that crews had found 41 leatherback nests. In 2012, when records were set, only 33 were found in the entire season which runs from March 1 to Oct. 31.
Gucker said the counts are similar in Sea Turtle Adventures’ stretch of beach. As of May 21, a whopping 213 nests had been located, she said. As in Boca, the majority are loggerheads.
But, the number of leatherback nests — 43 — has already shattered records, she said. The previous record was set when 19 were found during an entire season, she said.
Highland Beach is also on pace to have a record-breaking year at least for loggerhead and leatherback turtles, said Joanne Ryan, manager of the all-volunteer Highland Beach Sea Turtle Team.
By May 26, the team had logged 232 loggerhead and 18 leatherback nests. At the same time last year, the volunteers had recorded 148 loggerhead and just seven leatherback nests.
Still, she said, the number of green turtle nests is far off the record of 22 that were discovered in 2023. By May 27, only one had been recorded compared to two found last year by the same time.
But, Ryan said, green turtles typically nest later and often skip a year, which makes predictions difficult.
“This year should be interesting to see what we get,” she said.
A lone beachgoer is dwarfed by the piles of sargassum in late May as he walks along the south jetty wall at the Boca Raton Inlet.
Delray’s numbers down
The exception to the big-year scenario for loggerheads and leatherbacks is Delray Beach. As of the last week in May, city turtle watchers had logged 54 loggerhead and 10 leatherback nests. That is down slightly from the 60 loggerheads and 16 leatherback nests that were recorded last year by the same time.
While the deluge of sargassum is a factor, a bigger reason for the reduced numbers is Delray Beach’s recently completed $19.2 million beach renourishment project, said Cynthia Buisson, the city’s assistant public works director.
Crews have documented an abnormally high 149 “false crawls,” which means sea turtles approached the beach to nest but turned away. That isn’t unusual after a renourishment project, Buisson said. “Nesting success tends to drop the first year following construction,” she said.
In addition to encountering heavy mats of sargassum, would-be nesting turtles were also faced with a wall of sand that had formed as the new sand settled along the shore. The wall, known as an escarpment, was leveled off in mid-May.
Buisson said she is hopeful that nesting will pick up. “It is still early and things can change,” she said.
But statewide, Delray Beach is an anomaly, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“The 2026 sea turtle nesting season is officially off and with a strong start!” it wrote in a May 13 Facebook post. “Loggerheads and leatherbacks are both currently outpacing their recent record-breaking years.”
Both Anderson and Gucker said they can only hope that the abundance of nests produces an abundance of hatchlings that make it to the water.
“Obviously, I’m hoping a busy turtle season isn’t paired with a heavy seaweed season,” Gucker said.
Coral Springs residents Sonia Pekrol and her four-year-old daughter, Claire, look for a seaweed-free spot to set up their chairs at South Inlet Park in Boca Raton. The sargassum seaweed has invaded local beaches, leaving sparse open areas for visitors to relax.
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