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PICTURE SHOWS A
TRAPPED LOGGERHEAD TURTLE DURING BEACH WIDENING OF HIDEAWAY BEACH.
SEE HISTORIC
AERIALS OF HIDEAWAY BEACH
'Arceri
spoke with Nancy Richie who
said that this area is a turtle nesting area and a beach
renourishment project WOULD HELP TURTLES.' SEE
FULL>>
Nancy
Ritchie - City of Marco Island
Environmental Specialist 239-389-5003
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Collier
panel OKs beach project in turtle season
By CATHY
ZOLLO, crzollo@naplesnews.com
- April 24, 2005
Note:
Shortly after writing this article Cathy Zollo left Naples Daily
News
Caretta
caretta is her name, and each year she swims to Southwest Florida
beaches from feeding grounds hundreds of miles away to dig a nest
and lay her eggs.
It happens between May and October, and roughly
55 days later, dozens of baby loggerhead turtles emerge and
scramble to the relative safety of the Gulf of Mexico.
Loggerhead sea turtles are suffering a slow but
steady decline in their numbers, and, since 1978, they have been
considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
For that reason, environmentalists
and others are questioning a 4-2 decision by the Collier County
Coastal Advisory Committee to dredge and fill Hideaway Beach next
month, during turtle nesting season and against the advice of
county staff and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"They could start in November and finish by
March, so the question is why are they doing it now," said
Brad Cornell, environmental policy advocate for the Collier County
Audubon Society.
It's
mostly about money,
explained CAC member James Snediker, who lives on Hideaway Beach.
He was less diplomatic during talks about the
project during a special meeting of the coastal committee on March
24.
To comments by fellow CAC member Heidi Kulpa
that the decision set a bad precedent for turtles, Snediker said,
"I prefer human beings myself."
Snediker made no apology Friday for the
statement, explaining that he was miffed at Kulpa for giving
information he thought incorrect to the committee.
He said storing the steel for the T-groins that
the county will erect on the beach would cost taxpayers $10,400 if
the CAC held off until November — after turtle nesting seasons.
He was reluctant to say that it also would have
cost Hideaway Beach homeowners more for their share of the
project, though that was the concern of Snediker's neighbor at the
same meeting.
"If we have to wait until November, and the
cost of the project goes up, we will not have enough funds,"
said Eric Recknicks, president of the Hideaway Beach Homeowners
Association.
They feared having to send the project out for
another round of bids.
Hideaway Beach homeowners are paying for about
half the $5.1 million tab, but that's about half too little,
former CAC member Graham Ginsberg said.
Ginsberg calls Hideaway a private beach — in
fact, if not in name — since reaching it is difficult to
impossible, depending on a beachgoer's mobility and level of
fitness.
"I've opposed (funding) it from day one
because the public cannot get to that beach without walking
through three foot of water and three miles round trip, without
any facilities," Ginsberg said.
While Ginsberg has long argued that public funds
shouldn't go to the project because the beach lacked public
access, what he's most concerned about these days is the turtles.
Four
years ago, a similar project on Hideaway caused at least one
nesting sea turtle to lose most of her
hatchlings.
A county report of the incident, along with
photos, shows the animal wandering a wildly meandering path trying
to find its way back to the water.
In her
confusion, she dropped 11 eggs in her tracks, and only 21 eggs of
a 75-egg clutch survived to hatch. Of those, six had rear flippers
that were paralyzed.
The sea turtles also are threatened by some
fishing methods, oil and gas production, emerging diseases and egg
gathering and hunting by people.
Collier County officials, the Florida Department
of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
all say they permitted the project based on a biological study by
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Biologists from that agency said it isn't
uncommon for them to allow beach renourishment on Florida's west
coast during turtle nesting season because of low nest density.
Even so, it isn't the first choice of the agency, though they
leave the decision up to local governments, those biologists say.
"We've allowed them
to (renourish beaches) during the nesting season, but we'd always
prefer they work outside the nesting season," said Jane
Tutton, a biologist for U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
Her colleague, Trish Adams, who also worked on
the Hideaway Beach project assessment, said the backlog of work
due to Florida's active hurricane season and the fact that their
Vero Beach office was shut down for two weeks also were factors in
the decision to allow the project.
"We've been trying to work with our
counties in all of South Florida that have been affected by
hurricanes to give more leniency
for work into the nesting season,"
Adams said.
Officials for the county say they'll do their
best to ensure no turtles are adversely affected by the project.
"We're going to have a licensed turtle
monitor on the beach every evening during sand placement,"
said Gary McAlpin, coastal project manager for Collier County.
"If a turtle comes onto the beach, the beach (project) will
be shut down, and we'll only work on one section of the beach at
time." |
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Renourishment chaotic on marine life
Beach building
only temporary turmoil for ocean species, studies say - By
Jim Waymer - FLORIDA
TODAY
Although
the term "renourishment" sounds benevolent, pumping sand to
shore does little to nourish what lives there, at least in the first
year. Instead, it buries it, clouds it out or scares it away.
In the long run, most marine and beach life benefits
from a man-made beach, said Roxane Dow, environmental specialists with
the state Department of
Environmental Protection.
"We like to think
that, in the end, we provide habitat that was disappearing," she
said. "We don't do it just
for people, tourists and economic development. We do it to keep a
piece of Florida here that's valuable and important in its own
right."
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You
have to ask yourselves : Where is the justice, where is the public
out-cry? Where are the local environmentalist groups and why
aren't they protesting? |
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Fewer
turtles nesting this year NBC2
News
Posted on: Tuesday, June 14,
2005
For some mysterious reason, fewer
turtles are nesting.
Across Southwest Florida, turtle
conservancy groups have documented half the number of nests
compared to this same time last year – and last year's numbers
were also down.
"You're going to have ups and
downs, but this seems to be a trend toward fewer loggerhead
nests," said Dave Addison, biologist at the Nature
Conservancy.
Scientists know
fewer nests are showing up on our beaches, but they don't know
why. |
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The
Conservancy of Southwest Florida
1450
Merrihue Drive -
Naples, FL 34102
Website
:http://www.conservancy.org
Email
: info@conservancy.org
Phone :
239-262-0304 ............8:30 am
- 5 pm M- F Fax :
239-262-0672
NEWS
ARTICLE - Instead
of encouraging families with
their coolers and children to
come to Tigertail, Reiley said,
the city should focus on the
strengths of Tigertail: the
birds.
"We should
be encouraging people to bring
binoculars.
We don't need
children chasing birds and
trampling birds nests," she
said.
Monday,
December 2, 2002
By JANINE A.
ZEITLIN, Naples
Daily News
Critical
Habitat Designation on Marco
Island - October 2000
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TIGERTAIL BEACH WALKWAY -
BETTER BEACH ACCESS
Letter
from The
Conservancy of Southwest Florida
regarding a walkway that would
assist in access to the beach
from the parking lot at
Tigertail to the beach.
The
Conservancy of Southwest Florida
remains consistent in our
opposition to the construction
of any structure across, over,
through or in any way traversing
the Big Marco Pass Critical
Wildlife Area (CWA), also known
as Sand Dollar Island.
This State-owned
mudflat and tidal ecosystem is
managed and protected by its
status as a State Critical
Wildlife Area for nesting,
resting and feeding migratory,
wintering and resident
shorebirds.
In addition, in 2000,
this area was also designated as
Critical Habitat for the
wintering population of the
State-threatened piping plover. This site is
considered one of the ten most
important shorebird wintering
sites in the Eastern United
States and is one of only two
such CWAs between Tampa and
Flamingo.
The placement of any
structure, whether a boardwalk,
pier or observation tower, is
incompatible with the primary
function of this land as
protected shorebird habitat.
The Conservancy opposes
the draft conceptual plan for a
Tigertail Boardwalk and will
oppose any structure crossing
this sensitive environmental
system.
Critical
Wildlife Area
A
Critical Wildlife Area is
defined in the Florida
Administrative Code as an area,
“which is regulated to
minimize the adverse impact on
wildlife due to man-caused
disturbance or destruction.”
The submerged and
emergent lands are owned by the
Florida Department of
Environmental Protection, and
the CWA, which extends far
beyond the actual sandbar, is
managed by the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission
(FWC).
The CWA boundary
encompasses approximately 1,500
acres, because the State
realizes the sand will continue
shifting and as this occurs,
necessary shorebird habitat will
change.
As
part of this management, the FWC
has the authority to rope off
areas to keep people from
disturbing the birds.
Portions of the CWA are
roped off year-round for feeding
and resting areas, and
seasonally for nesting least
terns, black skimmers, snowy
plovers and Wilson’s plovers.
Seasonally, these
roped-off areas change,
depending on where shorebird
activity is concentrated.
No matter what location
would be proposed for a
boardwalk, it could at any time
be in conflict with a roped off
area.
Such a conflict would
ultimately result in the closing
of the boardwalk.
The County should not
spend tax dollars on a project
that might become unusable.
Piping
Plover Critical Habitat
The
designation of Critical Habitat
is required under the Endangered
Species Act for all listed
species.
This designation locates
areas that are important for
each listed species.
Piping plover Critical
Habitat was designated by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
in 2000.
The Sand Dollar Island
system is within the Critical
Habitat boundary.
Critical Habitat is a
tool used to notify federal
agencies of areas that must be
given special consideration when
they are planning, implementing
of funding activities.
It is triggered when
there is federal involvement.
Due to the involvement of
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
with a project such as a
boardwalk, this heightened level
of consultation would be
triggered.
The Sand Dollar
Island/Tigertail Beach system is
extremely important for
Florida’s threatened wintering
piping plover population.
The
incompatibility of a boardwalk
would be brought out during the
consultation triggered by
Critical Habitat.
A Rare and
Unique System
The
mudflat and shoal system that
dominates Sand Dollar Island and
Tigertail Beach creates the
necessary habitat for attracting
nesting, resting and feeding
migratory, wintering and
resident shorebirds.
This
system is not, and will never
be, a sugar-sand beach.
Collier County must
recognize and promote this area
for what it is – a world-class
birding destination and
ecological park. The purpose of
this area should not be to get
the maximum number of people to
the outer side of Sand Dollar
Island.
Such a goal is
incompatible with the resource.
The
inappropriateness of a boardwalk
in this area has been voiced by
environmental organizations
and concerned citizens,
including the Conservancy,
Florida Wildlife Federation,
Collier County Audubon Society
and Friends of Tigertial Beach.
The agencies that oversee
permitting of such projects have
also expressed serious concern
about this boardwalk idea.
Ricardo Zambrano,
Regional Biologist for the FWC,
is in charge of management of
the CWA and was quoted in the
Naples Daily News stating that,
“Obviously
we think it's a ridiculous
idea,” (November 7, 2004
Naples Daily News article
entitled, “Environmentalists:
Marco Path Not Really For
the Birds”).
Instead
of spending money on a
Feasibility Study for an
unfeasible and unwanted
boardwalk, tax dollars should be
shifted to promoting the unique
aspects of this area.
Options for beachgoers
should be done in a separate
forum, and encompass such ideas
as expansion of the South Beach
access, or purchase of
additional public access on the
Island.
The Conservancy asks that
Collier County abandon the
boardwalk study
In
addition, through discussion
with the County’s consultant
on this matter, we understand
that no additional public input
can be made until the County
reveals their recommendations
for this area.
Please let this letter
serve as part of the public
record, to be included in any
report on the feasibility of a
boardwalk.
The
Conservancy offers our
assistance to Collier County to
explore and maximize
opportunities to promote
understanding, awareness and
compatible uses for the
Tigertail Beach/Sand Dollar
Island system.
However, this should be
independent of an engineering
Feasibility Study.
If you have any
questions, please give me a call
at (239)
403-4220.
Sincerely,
Nicole
Ryan : Environmental
Policy Manager
 The
picture shows the Gulf of Mexico on the left and the body of water
tourists traverse at Tiger Tail Beach. The two paths were made by human
activity. The walkway would connect the sand on the left with the sand
on the right. 
This is how Tigertail Beach looked like.
The mouth was open for flushing at the bottom and the waters were deep
at the top.
The
present walkway dead ends with a sign saying 'VERY DANGEROUS CURRENTS IN
DEEP WATER' 
Tourists
seen crossing the water at Tiger Tail Beach - Conservationists objected
to a wooden boardwalk |
