By Pam Nicholls, GSAC Board Member
Submit questions or feedback online

Despite an alarming number of disorientations, 2025 was a record-breaking year for sea turtle hatchings in Collier County. 

Successive weather events washed away hundreds of nests in 2024, reducing the number of hatchings by more than half normal levels across the County’s beaches. However, a hurricane-free season this year prompted a big bounce back in successful hatchings, according to Sea Turtle Protection Program Environmental Supervisor Mary Toro. 

“While the numbers for each of the beaches are preliminary because we are still entering data, they should be close to our final totals,” Toro told the newsletter. Current figures indicate a record-breaking hatching year.  

For example, of the 217 nests laid on Park Shore Beach during the 2025 turtle nesting season (May 1st to October 31st),188 hatched. The comparison with 2024 is startling: out of 213 nests, only 78 hatched.   

Even though preliminary figures show 1713 of the 2162 nests laid on Collier’s beaches hatched this year; sadly, that doesn’t mean all the hatchlings made it into the Gulf.  

Park Shore beach in mid-July. Artificial lighting led to an alarming number of disorientations this year. 

Disorientations were worryingly high, says Toro, no more so than on Park Shore beach which accounted for 57 disorientations, the greatest number in the County. Disorientations occur when hatchlings emerge from a nest but head for an artificial light source rather than the natural horizon of the Gulf. Hatchlings that go the wrong way will die from exhaustion, dehydration or predation.  

“We are working closely with the City of Naples Code Enforcement Department to identify and address artificial lighting issues that contribute to disorientation, said Toro.  

City spokesperson Monique Barnhart-Tiberio said “a recurring problem is the replacement of hurricane-damaged landscape lighting without proper approvals and previously approved lighting being retrofitted with bright white bulbs that do not meet turtle-friendly standards.”