Did Tropical Storm Debby or Isaac do more damage to southwest Florida's turtle population?
NAPLES- Did Tropical Storm Debby or Isaac do more damage to Southwest Florida's sea turtle population? Fox 4 is taking that question to the experts.
An environmental specialist with Collier County, Maura Kraus, checks on the nests scattered along the Naples beach.
Just days after Isaac, she takes Fox 4 along to see if these sea turtles have a fighting chance.
"This one was inundated with Isaac, Tropical Storm Isaac. We'll keep a close eye on it, depends on how long the water stayed on top of the nest as to where it's going to hatch," said Maura Kraus.
Isaac brought nearly a 5 foot storm surge with some waves powerful enough to move the stakes surrounding nests.
"Oh yes. Definitely can do that and it can also move the eggs within the nests."
The southern portion of the Naples beach saw the highest tides and the nests Maura points out might be some of the lucky ones.
"I think this one will be okay. It doesn't appear it has been under water for that long," said Kraus as she points to a nest on the Naples beach.
So which storm did more damage? Debby or Isaac?
"Debby was pretty devastating. We lost close to 400 nests during Debby and we've lost less than 100 with Isaac."
Maura shares the information she has collected so far on Isaac. For example, Isaac left Delnor Wiggins untouched. No nests were destroyed. Back in June, Debby washed out 29 nests in the same area. Another example is on Parkshore where Debby destroyed 114 nests. Isaac only washed out 27 nests.
"Debby was much more severe. The waves came up much higher and it left beach in pretty bad damage."
The county is working on getting final numbers for nests destroyed by Isaac. These are preliminary numbers since the county does not have access to all portions of the beach because of high tide.



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