Sea Turtle Nesting on Jacksonville Area Beaches

Sea turtle nesting season on Jacksonville's beaches runs from May 1 through October, the Florida season Beaches Energy Services in Jacksonville Beach gives on its turtle page (Beaches Energy Services).

Beaches Energy, whose customer office is in the City Hall Building at 11 N. 3rd Street in Jacksonville Beach, notes that light pollution can keep mother turtles from coming ashore and can send hatchlings inland instead of toward the water (Beaches Energy Services).

The Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol, which walks Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Jacksonville Beach, gives May 1 as the start of nesting season on its home page, which is still headed for the 2021 season (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol). For a Jacksonville Beach household the patrol's practical rule is to turn off or shield all beachfront lighting after 9 p.m. and use window coverings to block indoor lights that face the beach (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol).

FWC counted 183 sea turtle nests on Duval County beaches in 2025: 180 loggerhead, 1 green turtle and 2 leatherback nests across 30.5 kilometers of surveyed shoreline (FWC).

Duval County also logged 133 loggerhead non-nesting emergences in 2025, the crawls where a turtle comes ashore and returns to the ocean without laying (FWC). St. Johns County has more than twice the surveyed beach and more than five times the loggerhead nests, while Nassau County had 16 green turtle nests to Duval's one (FWC).

The Duval County numbers come from the Statewide Nesting Beach Survey, which FWC and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began in 1979 and which now covers about 228 beaches, or about 835 miles, every year (FWC). From 2019 to 2023 those beaches averaged 158,861 nests a year statewide, all species combined (FWC).

Loggerheads make up nearly all nests on Duval County beaches, with a few green turtle and leatherback nests each year, and FWC says all five species that nest in Florida, these three included, are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (FWC).

Of the three species that nest in Duval County, NOAA Fisheries lists the Northwest Atlantic Ocean loggerhead population, which in the United States nests primarily along the Atlantic coast of Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina and along the Florida and Alabama coasts in the Gulf of America, as threatened (NOAA Fisheries). The North Atlantic green turtle population is listed as threatened (NOAA Fisheries), and the leatherback is endangered throughout its range (NOAA Fisheries). FWC says Florida hosts about 90 percent of the nests of the Northwest Atlantic loggerhead aggregation (FWC).

FWC adds that Florida is the only state in the continental U.S. where leatherbacks regularly nest, and the 2025 table shows two of them in Duval County (FWC). FWC says all activities relating to marine turtles must be authorized under subsection 379.2431(1), Florida Statutes (FWC), and the Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol says it operates under the auspices of the FWC Marine Turtle Program (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol).

The Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol says it is the only FWC-permitted turtle patrol in Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Jacksonville Beach, and it takes reports at (904) 613-6081 (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol).

The patrol says its volunteers are identifiable by its name on their shirts and ATVs, and that anyone seen touching a turtle or nest who is not identifiable as a patrol volunteer should be reported immediately to the appropriate local law enforcement agency (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol). It works only in those three cities; reports from other Duval County locations go to FWC at (888) 404-3922 (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol).

One caution about the patrol's own numbers: its home page still shows a 2021 season banner and a final 2020 nest count of 60 loggerhead nests, 3 leatherback nests and 1 green turtle nest, with 55 nests producing 3,696 hatchlings at a 63.2 percent hatch success rate (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol). Those figures are five seasons old and cover only the three Beaches cities, so FWC's 2025 Duval County table is the newer count (FWC).

Atlantic Beach, Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach each have a sea turtle lighting ordinance on FWC's statewide list, and FWC publishes the state model lighting ordinance, Chapter 62B-55, on the same page (FWC).

A Jacksonville Beach owner checking a fixture can use FWC's three wildlife lighting criteria: keep it low, mounted as low as possible with the lowest wattage needed; keep it long, with long wavelength light greater than 560 nm such as amber, orange and red LEDs; and keep it shielded, with full cutoff fixtures that keep lamps or glowing lenses from being directly visible (FWC).

Each nesting season Beaches Energy Services turns off street lights at beach access points where nests are present, and it works with the Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol and the City of Jacksonville Beach to spread the word about turtle safety and help enforce the patrol's recommendations (Beaches Energy Services). The two Jacksonville Beach references to know are Chapter 6, Article I of the city code and the Beaches Energy turtle page.

On a Jacksonville beach, a nesting turtle or hatchling should be left alone: keep distance, stay quiet, keep hands off and keep every light off, including phones and flash photography (FWC).

The Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol asks people who come upon a nesting turtle in Atlantic, Neptune or Jacksonville Beach to stay at least 25 yards behind her at all times and to report problems to (904) 613-6081 (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol). Its hashtag, #CleanDarkFlat, which Beaches Energy also promotes, means clearing litter and personal items off the sand, no lights at night, and filling in holes that trap turtles (Beaches Energy Services).

For a stranded hatchling in its three cities, the patrol says to place it in a small bucket or container with 1 to 2 inches of moist sand, cover it lightly with a cloth or towel and call right away, and not to put it back in the ocean; hatchlings washed back in after a storm are also to be called in, not returned to the water (Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol). Anywhere in Duval County, someone disturbing a nest, or an injured, dead or harassed sea turtle, goes to FWC Wildlife Alert at 888-404-FWCC (3922), or *FWC or #FWC from a cell phone (FWC).

FWC's list of facilities that house sea turtles includes two in St. Augustine, both on Oceanshore Boulevard (FWC).

FWC lists The Whitney Lab and Sea Turtle Hospital at 9505 Oceanshore Blvd., St. Augustine, (904) 436-8677, and Marineland Dolphin Adventure at 9600 Oceanshore Blvd., St. Augustine, (904) 471-1111, and gives Marineland a second number, (877) 933-3402 (FWC). FWC notes that many permitted facilities offer educational tours with captive turtles and that admission fees may be charged (FWC).

Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the FWC website. The FWC statewide table checked that day still showed the 2025 season, so 2026 Duval County totals were not yet posted (FWC).