Sea Turtle Nesting Near St. Petersburg and the Pinellas Beaches

Sea turtles nest on the Pinellas County Gulf beaches west and south of St. Petersburg, mostly loggerheads, during a county season that runs from May 1 through October 31.

Pinellas County says the loggerhead is the most common sea turtle found in the county and gives nesting and hatching season as May 1 through October 31 (Pinellas County Sea Turtle Protection). The county's own Fort De Soto Park page gives a narrower window, saying the beach provides refuge to the loggerhead, which nests between April and September (Pinellas County, Fort De Soto Park). The two county pages do not match: the May 1 to October 31 dates are the ones the county repeats in its lighting advice, while the Fort De Soto page gives April to September for the loggerhead. NOAA's loggerhead page says females in the northern hemisphere lay eggs between late April and early September (NOAA Fisheries).

FWC counts nests county by county on surveyed nesting beach, and its 2025 table shows how the bay divides: Pinellas County surveyed 76.7 km of beach, while Hillsborough County, on the other side of the bay, lists 0.0 km and no nests (FWC 2025 Statewide Nesting Totals). At 1,136 acres on five interconnected keys, Fort De Soto Park is the largest park in the county system, and a seven-mile paved trail joins its North Beach and East Beach (Pinellas County). Shell Key Preserve is reached only by boat, including a ferry from the Fort De Soto boat ramp (Pinellas County).

FWC's 2025 Statewide Nesting Beach Survey counted 638 loggerhead nests and 2 green turtle nests on 76.7 km of Pinellas County beach, with no leatherback nests.

The table compares Pinellas County with its Tampa Bay neighbors and the state, with every figure as FWC published it for the 2025 season. N is a nest; NNE is a non-nesting emergence, a crawl where the turtle came ashore but did not lay eggs.

Source for every row: FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. Sarasota County logged 8,197 loggerhead nests on 56.1 km of surveyed beach, against 638 on Pinellas County's 76.7 km. In Pinellas, crawls without a nest outnumbered nests by 1,016 to 638 in 2025.

The county's own history runs higher and lower than that. Pinellas County reports a record high of 669 sea turtle nests in 2019 and says the numbers are now in decline, and it says annual nests rose by more than 400 percent from 2011 to 2019, adding that without the habitat from periodic nourishment projects the yearly count would be much lower (Pinellas County). FWC's 2025 table, with 638 loggerhead and 2 green turtle nests, sits below the county's 2019 figure of 669, though the two numbers come from different publishers. Statewide trend figures come from a different FWC program: the Index Nesting Beach Survey counts 27 core index beaches out of 225 during a 109-day window from May 15 through August 31, and its loggerhead counts ranged from 28,876 in 2007 to 71,009 in 2023 (FWC Index Nesting Beach Survey). FWC says those index totals do not represent Florida's total annual nest counts.

Most Pinellas County barrier island cities, including St. Pete Beach and Treasure Island, have sea turtle lighting ordinances, but FWC lists Pinellas County government itself as having no lighting ordinance.

FWC's statewide list of sea turtle protection ordinances shows the Pinellas County entries below, in its own order and spelling (FWC Sea Turtle Protection Ordinances). Pinellas County says 12 out of 13 barrier island municipalities have light ordinances in place and points residents to that FWC list to find their own city's code (Pinellas County).

One detail matters for St. Petersburg residents headed to the beach: Fort De Soto and Shell Key are Pinellas County parks, and the county row on FWC's list reads No Lighting Ordinance. The City of St. Petersburg does not appear on FWC's Pinellas list at all (FWC).

Whatever the local code, the standard is the same. FWC's wildlife lighting criteria are to keep light low, with fixtures mounted as low as possible at the lowest wattage needed; long, using wavelengths greater than 560 nm such as amber, orange and red LEDs; and shielded, with full cutoff fixtures that hide the lamp from view (FWC Wildlife Lighting). Pinellas County repeats the same three words for beachfront properties and asks that lights visible from the beach be turned off after sunset from May 1 through October 31.

Florida's Marine Turtle Protection Act, section 379.2431, bars anyone, except as authorized, from knowingly possessing, taking, disturbing or harassing a sea turtle, hatchling, egg or nest on Pinellas County beaches, and NOAA lists the Northwest Atlantic Ocean loggerhead population as threatened.

The statute that covers every nest from Fort De Soto to Sand Key names five species: the Atlantic loggerhead, Atlantic green turtle, leatherback, Atlantic hawksbill and Atlantic ridley (Florida Statutes, s. 379.2431). Its core sentence says a person, firm or corporation may not knowingly possess, take, disturb, mutilate, destroy, cause to be destroyed, transfer, sell, offer to sell, molest or harass any of those turtles or hatchlings, or their eggs or nests. Take is defined to include significant habitat modification that kills or injures turtles by impairing behavior such as breeding. The same section lets the commission issue special permits for conservation activities such as the relocation of nests, eggs or turtles away from construction sites.

The permit rules sit in Florida Administrative Code Chapter 68E-1, Marine Turtle Permits, whose current rules, including Introduction, Scope and Definitions (68E-1.002) and Authorizations for Marine Turtle Research, Conservation, and Educational Activities (68E-1.0041), took effect 11/23/2016 (Florida Administrative Code, 68E-1). Pinellas County says the nest monitoring and relocation on its nourished beaches is done by scientists permitted by FWC. At the federal level, NOAA lists the Northwest Atlantic Ocean DPS of loggerheads as threatened and says that population nests primarily on the Atlantic coast from Florida to North Carolina and along the Florida and Alabama coasts of the Gulf of America, formerly the Gulf of Mexico (NOAA Fisheries loggerhead page).

Pinellas County asks beachgoers near St. Petersburg to leave nests and hatchlings alone, turn off lights visible from the beach after sunset, cover holes and pick up trash so hatchlings have a clear path.

Pinellas County asks beachgoers not to harass or touch any sea turtles or hatchlings, to pick up trash and cover holes to give hatchlings a clear path, and to use an FWC-approved amber light if light is needed near the beach (Pinellas County). NOAA's viewing guidance asks for at least 50 yards between people and sea turtles, by land or sea, and for boaters to put engines in neutral when a sea turtle is seen and let it pass (NOAA viewing guidelines). At Shell Key Preserve, Pinellas County rules say removal of live animals from the beach, sea turtles included, is not allowed (Pinellas County, Shell Key Preserve).

Nests on nourished beaches get extra handling. During beach nourishment projects, scientists permitted by FWC monitor and relocate nests as needed, and further in-depth monitoring continues for three years after a project, according to Pinellas County (Pinellas County). Before nourishment, portions of Sand Key had no dry beach and so no nesting habitat at all, according to the county.

Pinellas County describes a female laying 100 to 150 eggs at a time and three to eight nests a season, with hatchlings emerging at night after 45 to 70 days.

The county explains that females come ashore in the dark, dig with their rear flippers and lay their eggs, and that hatchlings emerge at night and head toward moonlight reflecting off the Gulf of America (Pinellas County). Only about one in a thousand hatchlings reaches adulthood, by the county's figure. Pinellas County says bright lights disorient hatchlings by attracting them inland, and that the barrier island light ordinances are in place to help hatchlings find their way to the water.

Adults return on a long cycle. NOAA says female loggerheads reach maturity at about 35 years of age and migrate to breed every 2 to 3 years in the general area where they hatched decades earlier, and that loggerheads are solitary, night-time nesters (NOAA Fisheries). FWC's index survey adds context for the two green turtle nests in Pinellas County's 2025 count: nesting green turtles tend to follow a two-year reproductive cycle, with wide year-to-year fluctuations, and green turtle counts on the 27 core index beaches reached nearly 50,000 nests in 2025 (FWC).

For a sea turtle in trouble near St. Petersburg, Pinellas County lists two numbers: FWC at 888-404-3922 and Clearwater Marine Aquarium at 727-441-1790, extension 1.

Pinellas County gives both numbers and also lists FWC at (888) 404-3922 for injured or dead marine mammals and sea turtles (Pinellas County). NOAA's reporting directory lists the Florida Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network at (888) 404-FWCC (888-404-3922), the same FWC line, and a NOAA Fisheries Southeast Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network Hotline at (844) SEA-TRTL (844-732-8785), with state-specific numbers listed beneath it (NOAA Fisheries report page). Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater and the Florida Aquarium in Tampa both appear in that directory's Florida list.

Last verified for Pinellas County and St. Petersburg readers: October 18, 2026, against the FWC nesting tables and ordinance list, the Pinellas County sea turtle and park pages, the Florida Statutes and the NOAA reporting directory.