Take Refuge: Sea Turtles Thriving at Archie Carr

The protected habitat provided by the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge has served a vital role in sea turtle species’ recovery.

We’ve got good news to report! The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has counted a record number of loggerhead sea turtle nests at Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida this year! An impressive 20,376 nests as of August 27th. That number crushes the previous record set at the refuge of 18,809 nests in 2012. This year has been strong for other sea turtle nesting efforts at Archie Carr too, with 1,295 green sea turtle nests, 72 leatherback nests and one nest from a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle – the rarest and most endangered sea turtle species in the world.

Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge was established along 20.5 miles of Florida’s central east coast in 1991. Since then, local, state and federal partnerships have helped to protect and rebuild one of the most productive sea turtle nesting sites in the world. It’s proof of how important habitat protected by our National Wildlife Refuge System is to the recovery of threatened and endangered wildlife.

This refuge is the most productive nesting site for loggerhead sea turtles in the Western Hemisphere, and the most significant nesting habitat for green sea turtles in the continental United States. About 25-35% of the total loggerhead and green sea turtle populations in the United States nest at Archie Carr. The Florida refuge is also increasingly an important nesting site for leatherback sea turtles, one of the world’s largest and rarest sea turtles, which can very nearly reach the size of a Volkswagen Beetle!

The refuge was named after Dr. Archie Carr, Jr., a pioneering conservationist and herpetologist who drew national and international attention to the plight of sea turtles and the risks of extinction. Public offerings at the refuge include research and education programs, as well as guided sea turtle watch tours. Earlier this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Marine Turtle Research Group at the University of Central Florida (UCF) also agreed to establish a permanent research facility on the refuge that will include a new research lab and additional accommodations for conservation staff and students.

Both UCF and FWS credit the recovering turtle populations to protection of coastal habitats in the refuge, as well as technological improvements such as the turtle excluder device (TED) that has helped prevent turtles from being accidentally captured by commercial fishing. Learning more about the life cycle of these imperiled animals through research and observation has also led to stronger population numbers and increased public support for turtle conservation.

In part because of the habitat protected by the refuge and other legal safeguards provided by the Endangered Species Act, breeding populations of green sea turtles along the Florida coast were recently downlisted from endangered to threatened status. The four-foot long green turtles, weighing up to 440 pounds, are “among the oldest creatures on earth that have remained essentially unchanged for 110 million years,” according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Green sea turtles are the slowest growing of any sea turtle species, taking 35 to 50 years to mature.

From June through September, the public is invited to learn more about sea turtle nesting and conservation at Archie Carr and to participate in the release of rescued hatchlings. This refuge is vital not only to nesting Florida sea turtles but also to research on these imperiled species that could help strengthen populations internationally. While the refuge protects vital nesting habitat for sea turtles, these species are also threatened by other factors over the course of their life cycle, including coastal development, artificial lighting and marine pollution. We can all do our part to conserve and restore habitat for these remarkable animals.

This blog is part of an ongoing series on our National Wildlife Refuge System and the vital role that refuges play in protecting species and providing crucial habitat for wildlife. Check in regularly to hear from our field teams, policy experts and staff on Capitol Hill about new developments and continuing threats to these wild places and what you can do to help.