Panama City Beach Turtle Watch

06/18/2026

🐢 NEST UPDATE: The Good News, the Bad News, and How You Can Help! 🌊

First, the good news: We currently have 22 loggerhead nests marked for protection across Panama City Beach! 🎉

Now for the bad news: We are currently experiencing very high tides, drastic daily changes in beach depth, and strong surf. This rough weather is impacting some of our nests with waves wash over them or even washing them out.

Why can't we just move them?
We operate under an FWC permit that requires us to leave nests in place once they are marked. Even if a nest is getting washed over by waves or the stakes are washed out, we are not permitted to relocate it unless we encounter exposed eggs (which are the size and shape of a ping-pong ball). Otherwise, our rule is to leave them in place and monitor them daily.

How you can help:
Our surveyors check the nests at least 4 times a day, but extra eyes always help! If you see downed stakes or exposed eggs:

🚫 DO NOT replace the stakes or dig for the eggs yourself.

📍 DO note your specific street address or beach location and where the eggs are on the beach (close to the water, at the wrack line).

📞 DO report it immediately via Facebook message, the phone number on the blue sign at the nest, or the non-emergency PCB Police line at 850-233-5000.

Looking Ahead:
Sea turtles lay nests approximately every two weeks during the season, and we are still in the first half of our nesting season! While some of our current nests may be impacted, we remain optimistic for the rest of the season. 🤞🐢

Work performed under MTP-038

📸 Photo: A nest from a previous season that eroded and had exposed eggs.

05/31/2026

Facebook live didn't cooperate so here's a video instead.

As mentioned in our previous Facebook Live here is part 2.

A loggerhead successfully nested on PCB last night. We believe this is the turtle that false crawled (disturbed by people and lights) a mile down the beach about an hour before this. Thank you to the beachgoers that called to report the turtle and to our volunteers who responded late at night to protect her and mark the nest for protection. Bystanders here made sure no one was using lights and stayed 30+ feet away to avoid disturbing her. They learned all about the species and nesting process (able to see everything under a full moon) from our volunteers.

The nest will be on the beach for the next 60 to 80 days during its incubation.

As per our permit guidelines, we don't release nest locations until it has hatched and an excavation (nest inventory) is scheduled.

05/31/2026

05/24/2026

This past week, a loggerhead chose our beach overnight to lay her nest and our surveyors and volunteers put their FWC and local training to work to identify the crawl and mark it for protection as Nest 1 of our 36th season!

Per our permit guidelines, we do not post the locations of our nests. If you happen to see a marked nest on the beach, please refrain from entering the area so the egg chamber can stay well protected for the next 60-70 days. That is the average incubation time here on our beach and it is all dependent on various environmental factors. We commonly find our first nest around this time in May so we are right on track and hope to be finding many more nests over the next few months.

If you encounter a sea turtle on the sandy beach at night, please refrain from using flash photography, use no lights at all (causes disorientation), avoid her track and any disturbed sandy areas, observe from the back side of the turtle from a distance and contact PCB Police non-emergency at 850-233-5000. They will contact our on call volunteers to respond and protect the turtle and the nest she lays.

Remember, everyone can do their part leaving our beaches clean, dark and flat!

Photo by Jason Taylor, MTP-038 volunteer

04/26/2026

A very special thanks to Pompano Joe's Panama City Beach for their continued support of Panama City Beach Turtle Watch! Whether you are a local or here for a visit, stop by and grab a Turtle Brew at Pompano Joe's and you will be supporting our organization as well!

☀️🍻We’re helping the Sea Turtles one beer at a time!!🌴 Today we presented our annual donation check to The Panama City Beach Turtle Watch!🐢
A portion of our BEACH TURTLE BREW & T-SHIRTS are donated each year.
For more info on you can help our precious sea turtles go to TurtleWatch.org

04/18/2026

Thanks to everyone that stopped by to visit our volunteers today at the Earth Day event in St Andrews! Our volunteers love the opportunity to share information about our program and we appreciate the support as we head into our 36th season that will begin on May 1st!

03/17/2026

Our friends at Florida Panhandle Marine Institute are working hard to get their new facility established. We often have Panama City Beach Turtle Watch volunteers respond to sick, injured or hooked turtles that are then transferred to FPMI so we wish them all the best with their fundraising and building efforts. If you are so inclined, follow them and donate to help those efforts.

01/01/2026

Happy New Year everyone!

As we turn our calendars to 2026, we wanted to share a recap our 2025 Season.

We’d like to thank all of our surveyors, volunteers, local agencies, residents and visitors who played a role in the protection of the Loggerhead and Green sea turtles in Panama City Beach, FL during our 2025 season.

We had 49 nests, 42 loggerhead and 7 green, on the beach this season stretching from our eastern to western boundaries. We relocated two nests. Volunteers witnessed nesting turtles and were able to apply passive tags on four nesting loggerheads and two nesting greens. We recorded two different in season repeat nesting turtles. We endured minor nest impacts from high tide events (fortunately no named storms) leading to the highest hatchling production on record since 1991! We also experienced a late end to our season with a special boat release of cold stunned hatchlings from two nests.

We appreciate the help from our local police, code enforcement and our local lifeguards. We enjoyed the opportunity to share information about our program and sea turtles at local events, schools and excavations.

Below we have recapped some of our 2025 season highlights. We look forward to being ready to start our season again May 1, 2026!

All work/photos conducted under MTP-038, MTP-271, MTP-286

11/23/2025

Our final summary of 2025 excavation results.

Nest 45, a loggerhead nest
Date laid July 28, 2025
Date hatched October 5 , 2025
-87 hatched eggs
-4 whole eggs (didn't hatch/won't hatch at this point)
-7 broken
-98 total eggs, 89% success rate

Nest 46, a green nest
Date laid August 7, 2025
Date hatched October 11, 2025
-131 hatched eggs (4 live hatchlings still in the nest at the time of excavation were taken to a dark beach and released that night)
-5 whole eggs (didn't hatch/won't hatch at this point)
-136 total eggs, 96% success rate

Nest 47, a green nest
Date laid August 18, 2025
Date hatched November 3, 2025
-128 hatched eggs (8 live hatchlings still in the nest at the time of excavation were taken to a dark beach and released that night)
-9 whole eggs (didn't hatch/won't hatch at this point)
-137 total eggs, 93% success rate

Nest 48, a loggerhead nest, received washover on multiple occasions at the end of incubation (can stop/slow the incubation) and had accretion from sand washing in with the washover
After 80 days (permit protocol) we excavated to assess the results
Date laid August 20, 2025
Failed to hatch
-1 live pipped egg (turtle hadn't emerged from egg shell, was given time and was released when it had finished hatching from its shell)
-85 whole eggs (didn't hatch/won't hatch at this point)
-1 broken egg
-87 total eggs, 1% success rate

Nest 49, a green nest, our final nest of 2025
Date laid August 29, 2025
Date hatched November 9, 2025
-134 hatched eggs (6 live hatchling still in the nest at the time of excavation were taken to a dark beach and released that night)
-1 dead pipped (turtle died before finishing the hatch process)
-8 whole eggs (didn't hatch/won't hatch at this point)
-143 total eggs, 94% success rate

All activities performed under MTP-038