Green Turtle Nesting in Florida 43 



lier years. About 1886 he took 2,500 turtles with eight nets; in 1895 he 

 secured only 60 turtles with six nets. The principal reason assigned for 

 the decrease by Mr. Pearke is that the turtles have been frightened off 

 by the steamboats and launches. The unusual cold of the winter of 1894- 

 95 is also known to have seriously affected the abundance of turtles. 

 Several hundred turtles were then found floating on the surface in a 

 numbed or frozen condition. On being warmed most of them survived 

 and were soon on their way to the northern markets. Since the cold 

 spell turtles have been much scarcer than ever." This quote has often 

 been incorrectly attributed to Evermann and Bean (1896). 



Wilcox also noted that the fishery was a net fishery operating 

 between November and March, and that although occasional turtles 

 weighed 220 pounds, the average weight was 50 pounds in 1891 and 36 

 pounds in 1895. This would indicate that a juvenile rather than a nesting 

 population was being exploited. 



Brice (1896) also noted a decline in green turtle abundance, this 

 time in the Keys region, and said it was probably due to overfishing. He 

 stated: "The fishermen comment upon the fact that for the past few 

 years the green turtles have not been depositing their eggs on Key West 

 and the adjacent keys. It is very probable that this is owing to the exces- 

 sive hunting of this species, and that they now deposit their eggs on the 

 more distant and inaccessible keys." It is clear that Brice was talking 

 about a breeding population, since nesting was mentioned and the tur- 

 tles ranged in size from 125 to 275 pounds, unlike those of the fisheries 

 on Cedar Key and the Indian River. The turtle grounds were principally 

 from Marquesas Key to Alligator Light on the east coast, the Bay of 

 Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico, intervening between the western keys 

 and the mainland. This is roughly the same area with which Audubon 

 (1926) was most familiar. By the time of later turtle statistics (Ingle and 

 Smith 1949; Rebel 1974), Key West and other Florida ports served as 

 outlets for a turtle fishery throughout the Caribbean instead of one 

 solely regionally based; the local green turtle breeding population had 

 been decimated. Until the report of Carr and Ingle (1959), green turtles 

 had not been reported as nesting in Florida since 1896. 



NESTING TRENDS SINCE 1959 

 The numbers of green turtle nests that can be documented since 

 1959 are provided by site in Table 1. The sources of data for this table 

 are: Carr and Ingle (1959); Routa (1967); Gallagher et al. (1972); 

 Ehrhart (1975, 1979); Worth and Smith (1976); Mann (1977); Ehrhart 

 and Yoder (1978); Fletemeyer (1979, 1980); Stoneburner et al. (1979); 

 Florida Department of Natural Resources (1979, 1980); Schwartz et al. 



