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Loggerhead turtles are nesting in record numbers on beaches along the East Coast this summer. While they're still struggling to recover in parts of the Mediterranean and Pacific, their numbers in the Atlantic are on the rebound, and Florida is one of their favorite places to nest. That's where reporter Catherine Welch caught up with researchers who are helping the loggerhead make their comeback.
CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: Just along the dunes on Juno Beach, several wooden stakes painted bright orange poke out of the sand, marking the spot where turtle eggs incubate below. Justin Perrault approaches one of the nests. He's with the Loggerhead Marinelife Center.
JUSTIN PERRAULT: Some hatch - faint hatching tracks you can see from the clutch. Some right there. Those are little turtle tracks.
WELCH: This nest is hatched, and Perrault digs in. As he pulls out empty eggshells, he sees something moving in the sand.
PERRAULT: Oh, here we go. He's alive. Just sleeping and probably hot.
WELCH: He gently grabs two baby turtles and sets them into his equipment bag to let go later. This nest held 70 eggs, and only about half of them hatched. Perrault says that's normal when a hot, dry summer like this one heats up the sand and essentially cooks the eggs below. Loggerheads face incredible odds. As eggs, they have to survive predators combing the beach at night, looking for a meal.
PERRAULT: Coyotes, dogs, raccoons, skunks, foxes, armadillos. You know, the eggs are - there's a lot of calories in them.
WELCH: Once they hatch and survive their journey into the open water, loggerheads grow to about the size of a coffee table. The females love the Juno Beach area just north of West Palm Beach. This nearly 10-mile stretch is seeing record-breaking numbers with a little more than 13,000 nests. Back in 2007, there were only around 3,600. Perrault credits the Endangered Species Act and state laws for their comeback.
PERRAULT: Very encouraging that we're starting to see these numbers.
WELCH: The loggerheads here in Florida aren't the only ones who've been busy on the beach. Up the coast in Georgia, they're expected to make more than 4,000 nests this season, breaking a nearly 40-year record. And on the beaches of North Carolina, there are more than a thousand nests. That's about last year's total, and the season isn't over yet.
PERRAULT: Here in the United States, turtle numbers are doing very well, for the most part. In other parts of the world, that's not the case, so we hope to, you know, set examples for others that your populations can hopefully recover as well.
WELCH: Loggerheads are recovering better in the U.S., he says, because there's less egg poaching and more regulation of fishing gear to protect mature turtles. Perrault heads back to the lab. It's where some of his colleagues are repairing the shell of an adult turtle that was hit by a boat and cracked. Rehabilitation like this is another reason sea turtle populations continue to grow. Boaters' fishing lines and floating plastics are the main threats loggerheads face out in the ocean, says the center's chief science officer, Heather Barron.
HEATHER BARRON: They're amazing. They're the most amazing creatures on earth. Never met a tougher species of animal.
WELCH: And when this loggerhead is ready, she'll go back into the water, and that may not be goodbye. There's a chance that one day she'll return to this beach to nest.
For NPR News, I'm Catherine Welch in Juno Beach, Florida.
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