| 2025-2026 | ~50,000 nests |
| 2020-2021 | ~23,000 nests |
| 2010-2011 | ~10,000 nests |
| 2000-2001 | ~4,000 nests |
| 1980s – | ~500 nests |
*Florida Wildlife Commission, using two-year averages, as green turtle nesting totals appear to vary in a two-year cycle. These are not total statewide (or U.S.) nesting estimates, but counts of nesting at 27 long-studied beaches, making up a representative sample of known Florida nesting beaches.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
From the Chinese classics A-list: Sometime around 330 BC, proto-conservationist Mencius offers King Hui of Liang (a Warring States principality near today’s Kaifeng) a simple solution to a complex problem:
“If you ban nets with fine mesh from ponds, there will be more fish and turtles than the people can eat. If you ban axes from the forests on the hillsides except in the proper season, there will be more timber than the people can use.”
And from the research arm of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission a week ago Monday, an excited Facebook post:
“We may have a new loggerhead nesting record in Florida. Loggerheads have reached a preliminary 136,972 nests statewide as of August 31, already exceeding the previous annual record of 134,930 nests set in 2023. These numbers are still preliminary and will need to be verified before we can officially call 2026 a new record year, but it’s an exciting milestone! Leatherbacks have also had a remarkable season, with 2,209 nests documented so far. If these preliminary numbers are confirmed during final data review, 2026 would also set a new statewide leatherback nesting record.”
Background: Turtles — large, armored reptiles with few natural predators — are very tough animals. The 2026 nesting season was about the 150 millionth in the series, meaning turtles weathered not only the last seven ice ages but the apocalyptic end-of-Cretaceous asteroid that did in the belemnite and the mosasaur. Nonetheless, as of 2025, all seven sea turtle species — greens, loggerheads, leatherbacks, Kemp’s Ridleys, olive Ridleys, flatbacks, hawksbills— were on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s “Red List” as “vulnerable,” “threatened,” “endangered,” or “critically endangered,” and U.S. law considers all seven endangered. NOAA’s summary for the green turtle explains the causes of their 20th-century “catastrophic global decline”:
(1) “By-catch,” as turtles drown in nets towed by shrimp boats and fishing fleets;
(2) Direct hunting “in extraordinarily high numbers for their fat, meat, and eggs”;
(3) Loss of nesting grounds through beach erosion, seawall construction, and
bright hotel lighting that deters night-time nesting;
(4) Collisions with boats close to shore;
(5) Ocean pollution, in particular plastics and balloons;
(6) Climate change and warming ocean temperature; and
(7) Communicable diseases possibly linked to deteriorating habitat.
Some of these threats — floating plastics, warming water — are daunting, global-scale issues. But others turn out to require only the sort of simple ideas Mencius pitched to King Hui. In 1991, the Florida government under Gov. Lawton Chiles imposed beach protection rules and night-time nesting-month blackouts on hotels. (Florida has 90% of the U.S. sea turtle nesting sites, and joins Oman as one of two main loggerhead nesting sites worldwide.) Puerto Rico, the main western-hemisphere leatherback nesting site, has done the same. Most countries, including the U.S., have banned turtle-hunting for food and jewelry, and banned trade in turtle products through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. And Congress in 1987 adopted a law imposing Mencius’ actual idea, requiring shrimp boats serving the U.S. — whether local or foreign — to equip their nets with “Turtle Excluder Devices,” which are cheap metal grilles with holes allowing unintentionally trapped turtles to swim out of the nets. NOAA thinks the TEDs are 97% successful.
A generation later, FWC’s researchers not only can talk up a good 2026 nesting season but point to a much improved basic landscape. When Florida wildlife biologists began their regular nest counts in 1989, they found 37,000 loggerhead nests, 500 green turtle nests, and 98 leatherback nests. This year’s season isn’t quite over, but the nearly 140,000 loggerhead nests the FWC cites mean a roughly four-fold increase, while leatherback nesting totals are up about 20-fold and green turtle counts 100-fold. Counts in Georgia and Texas are up as well, including a return of the particularly rare Kemp’s Ridley. Green turtle world populations specifically appear to have jumped by 28%, leading the International Union for Conservation of Nature to shift them from “endangered” to “least concern”. Not more than people could theoretically eat, at least so far, and the other six remain in the “vulnerable” to “critically endangered” tiers. But still pretty good, and a reminder that relatively modest policies sustained over time can often achieve a lot.
FURTHER READING
Then:
An online Mencius translation; see Chapter 1A.3 for turtle and fish policy.
Now:
NOAA’s green turtle assessment: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/green-turtle
The Florida Wildlife Commission reports on nesting totals for five turtle species at 27 annually studied “index beaches” from 1989 through 2025: https://myfwc.com/research/wildlife/sea-turtles/nesting/beach-survey-totals/
… Their upbeat (if still incomplete) 2026 returns.
… And their guide to beachfront lighting rules.
The IUCN’s 2026 “Red List” assessments, with green turtles still on the list but at “least concern” level.
Also:
Texas’ Sea Turtle Patrol counts 697 Kemp’s Ridley nests so far in 2026, up from 449 in 2025, 340 in 2024, 256 in 2023, 284 in 2022, and 195 in 2021. The Kemp’s Ridley is the smallest and most endangered sea turtle, with worldwide nesting totals (per NOAA) down to 702 in 1985. Since then, totals have rebounded to about 9,000 per year in Mexico, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has created a second nesting site on Padre Island in Texas, whose nest counts are up from an initial 7 to 353 last year.
Georgia’s Sea Turtle Nest Monitoring System reports 4,292 nests this year (all species), up from 1,910 in 2025 and 2,521 in 2024.
The New England Aquarium reports on leatherback tracking in Puerto Rico.
And a report from Masirah Island in Oman.
Policy:
The CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) homepage.
NOAA explains how Turtle Excluder Devices work.
The State Department explains shrimping import and turtle conservation rules, and which countries’ fleets qualify.
