Protecting Alabama’s Sea Turtles: How to get involved

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It happens every year around May 1st. On the beaches in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Bon Secour, Fort Morgan and Dauphin Island long tracks in the sand suddenly appear from the sea. 

What is it? A “mama” sea turtle seeking a place to lay her eggs. 

Today, because of developments along the Alabama coastline and the bright lights that go along with it, sea turtles need our help. 

There is a special group dedicated to do just that and they have the perfect name: Share the Beach, a program of the Alabama Coastal Foundation.

This is the first story in a three-part series about three animals that are found only on Alabama’s coast and bays that need our protection for survival.

In this edition, learn why sea turtles matter and how you can lend a hand.

About Alabama’s sea turtles

Sea turtles have inhabited planet earth since the dinosaurs.

In Alabama, three rare sea turtles build nests on our coast between May 1st and August 31st. They are:

• Kemp’s Ridley — The smallest and one of the most endangered sea turtles in the world.
• Loggerhead Sea Turtle — Found all over the world, the Loggerhead is listed as an endangered species. It can live 70-80 years.
• Green Sea Turtle — The largest of the hard shell sea turtles in the world, this creature is an herbivore that can weigh up to 350 pounds.

Biggest threat to sea turtles

According to Mark Berte, Executive Director at the Alabama Coastal Foundation (ACF), the biggest threat to nesting sea turtles are bright lights and coastal development. His group has tackled this problem by working with property owners and renters. 

“They’ve all been doing a really great job of retrofitting their light fixtures on those buildings, on the beach with red or amber-colored lights. You want a longer wavelength — that’s less disruptive to the turtles.” 

His group also promotes the use of a special flashlight people can use at night that is “sea turtle-friendly,” Just in case you encounter a “mama” sea turtle looking for a nest.  

Why does all this matter? Before the lighting was changed, it was common to see sea turtles disorientated by the bright lights ending up in swimming pools or on a road where they would get hit by cars. Through ACF’s vigilant effort of staff and volunteers, thankfully, it doesn’t happen as often.

How sea turtles lay their eggs

Back to those long “tracks.” How do sea turtles lay their eggs? 

Beginning around May 1st, at night, the mama sea turtles land on an Alabama beach and seek out a place to lay their eggs making “tracks.” You can pretty much tell by the tracks if it is by the Kemp Ridley or bigger, heavier Loggerhead and Green sea turtles by the depth and pattern of the tracks. 

When a female sea turtle finds a spot to lay her eggs, she will crawl up onto the sand to make herself comfortable by using her front flippers. Then she uses her rear flippers to dig that hole, and it’ll be about two feet or more deep where she’s going to deposit her eggs. 

Once she’s finished doing that, she covers it all back up, crawls back to the water and does it again, probably in about two weeks at another spot on the beach.

How many eggs does she lay? On average about 110 eggs. 

And how many nests throughout the Alabama Coast are established during the May-August season? About 100.  

This is no small feat. 

It takes a while for “mama” sea turtles to be mature enough to take on this task. For Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, they begin to lay eggs at 10 years old. For green sea turtles, at least 25. Loggerheads don’t lay eggs until they are over 30 years old.

How Share the Beach works

After the sea turtle lays her eggs, the Share the Beach volunteers spring into action.

Share the Beach Director Rachael Holdsworth described the steps the volunteers take to “Share the Beach:”

• Step 1 — At first light, the volunteers walk the beach looking for sea turtle tracks, and when they find them, they follow to look for a nest, a fluffy area of sand where they know the mama turtle has nested. 
• Step 2 — Once they find the nest, a team of trained volunteers will come out and help secure the area. They do that by putting a predator screen over the top and placing four stakes in the corners. They post signs to let people know it’s a sea turtle nest and wrap it with flagging tape to mark that area off.

Two months to incubate and the “boil”

The volunteers watch over the nests and eggs daily while they incubate. Around the two-month mark, they start using a stethoscope to listen for them to begin hatching.

When the emergence occurs, a Share the Beach volunteer will clear a path and keep beach-goers back. They make sure there are no bright white lights, flashlights or flash photography.

Known as a “boil,” the sand starts moving fast—looking like it’s boiling—and all 100+ sea turtle hatchlings emerge at the same time.

“You’ll see a scout come out first: One turtle will come out by himself and make his way to the water. Then after he does that, suddenly, all the hatchlings will emerge in a collective effort and try to make their way to the water all together. We think that is a survival tactic, because some of them are going to be lost to crabs or fish.”

Rachael Holdsworth, Director, Share the Beach 

Why Share the Beach matters

After all is said and done, on average, only one in 10,000 sea turtle hatchlings that make it to the water will survive to adulthood.

Holdsworth added:

“They are considered a ‘keystone species,’ which means that lots of other organisms depend on them. For example, the shell of a sea turtle is home to a multitude of organisms such as algae, barnacles, crabs, sea urchins, marine worms and snails to name a few.

We need to make sure their species thrive. It’s part of our coastal way of life to make sure we take care of our environment.”

How you can help Share the Beach 

Want to support the Share the Beach program? If you live near the beach, become a volunteer.There are two Alabama Coastal Foundation’s Share the Beach 2025 nesting season mandatory meetings in March: They are:

• Tuesday, March 18, 6:00PM at the Erie Meyer Civic Center (1930 West 2nd Street, Gulf Shores, AL 36542)
• Thursday, March 20, 6:00PM in Shelby Auditorium at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (101 Bienville Boulevard, Dauphin Island, AL 36528).

Anyone interested in becoming a new volunteer must attend one of these meetings.

Can’t volunteer? Donate to the program here:  https://www.joinacf.org/donate

Next up — Manatees

Our 2nd story in our series about animals on Alabama’s coast and bays that need our help for survival is another ancient creature — the manatee.

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