The Volusia-FlaglerTurtle Patrol is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of sea turtles. The group patrols 25 miles of beach from May 1st until the end of September, looking for turtle crawls. When we find a fresh crawl, we determine whether it is a nest or false crawl (non-nesting emergence), then we mark the nest of with four stakes and a ribbon, affix a FDEP (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) sign stating that it is a turtle nest and not to disturb it. We also complete a nesting report and plot the crawl on an aerial photo.

We split our section of Volusia County beach into two parts: North and South, so we can complete our morning surveys before beach driving begins.

The south run is done by driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle from Silver Beach to the Ponce Inlet Jetty. The north run is done by 4-wheel drive vehicle to the Old Ormond Pier (tide permitting), then the last 4 miles are done on an ATV.

Flagler County is split into three main sections: Flagler North, Flagler Beach and Flagler South. All 3 of these runs are done on ATVs due to the nature of the coastline and rocky shore.

All nests are monitored on a daily basis until they hatch. Once they hatch, we do a nest evaluation to determine the success of the nest.