South Florida scientists studying newborn sea turtles

BOCA RATON, Fla. — There are only two facilities in the entire world that study leatherback turtle hatchlings, and South Florida is home to one of them.

Inside, there are pools upon pools upon pools, all filled with newborn sea turtles.

The team at the Florida Atlantic University Marine Science Lab in Boca Raton provides groundbreaking research in understanding how turtles live and survive in the ocean.

“We bring in different species of sea turtles, the loggerheads, the greens and the leatherbacks and we raise them usually anywhere from two to six months,” said lab coordinator Emila Turla.

Director Jeanette Wyneken has been studying these reptiles for 24 years.

“We need to know what characteristics the population of turtles have that may be advantageous for species recovery, they are all either threatened or endangered,” she said. “One of the things we never knew was that this species of turtle dives down pretty far, at least at this age, we know the big ones do but we didn’t know the little guys are going down.”

Experts say the mysterious leatherbacks spend 70% of their lives in deep water.

The research facility is using satellite tagging to answer questions about the turtles that have never been known, until now.

“One of our turtles went down to 330 feet on one breath, one little baby leatherback turtle,” said Turia. “And the turtles are typically going to about 230 feet deep.”

But it’s what is happening in the nests on the beach that has these scientists focusing on the vulnerable leatherbacks that have declined by 90%,

David Anderson works in tandem with the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex on one very important study.

“My team and I survey all five miles of Boca Raton beaches for all the sea turtle nesting activity,” he said. “The sex ratio study, to determine how many hatchlings are male and how many hatchlings are female from that particular nest, because they are temperature dependent to be male or female.”

Meaning if its cool in the sandy nests, the leatherbacks will be male, and if those nests are hot then the turtles will be female.

Tje team’s research over decades shows the heat is producing way too many females and not nearly enough males.

“We know in general its hot chicks cool dudes, but the hot part up here, that’s easy, it’s too hot to make anything but girls,” said Wyneken. “If it gets too much hotter they’re just dead so that’s too hot to hatch.”

Climate change, a hotter planet, warming oceans, all of these symptoms are capable of wiping out the sensitive sea turtle population, but this turtle nesting season has seen a whopping 41 leatherback nests on Boca Raton beaches so far, which is double the annual average.

“Just because there’s a lot of nest numbers doesn’t mean everything’s great, because the hatchlings still have a tremendous struggle to survive to adulthood, which would take them 20-25 years to do so,” said Anderson.

Only one in one thousand hatchlings will even survive, and this summer season has seen record breaking heat.

Hatchlings also get confused by light pollution and piles of seaweed that trump the feverish work of tiny flippers.

After the turtles grow to the size of a human hand, they take a boat ride offshore to be released into the gulf stream.

Some will be equipped with satellite tags to continue the search for answers to help understand how to help in the sea turtle species survival.

Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.