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Florida beaches carry most of the loggerhead nesting in the western hemisphere and the season runs from March to October, with hatchlings from late June.
The densest nesting on the continent is the twenty-mile Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Brevard and Indian River counties. Juno Beach in Palm Beach County has the Loggerhead Marinelife Center on the sand, which treats injured turtles and runs guided night walks in season. Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge in Martin County, Canaveral National Seashore, and the Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center in Santa Rosa County are the others. The Turtle Hospital in Marathon in Monroe County is a working hospital you can tour. Turn lights off and keep off the dunes in season.
Brevard County. Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge runs for 20.5 miles of beach and shoreline between Melbourne Beach and Wabasso Beach, crossing from Brevard into Indian River County. It was created to protect the most significant loggerhead sea turtle nesting area in the world and the most significant green turtle nesting area in North America.
Open the guide →Palm Beach County. Guarded, and a beach that suits surfers and families at the same time. The Juno Beach Pier runs out from beside it.
Open the guide →Palm Beach County. Guarded, and the Loggerhead Marinelife Center sits in the park behind it - a working sea turtle hospital with aquariums and exhibits you can walk through.
Open the guide →Martin County. The Indian River Lagoon divides it. On the ocean side, seven hundred and thirty-five acres of Jupiter Island beach make some of the most productive sea turtle nesting ground in the country, used by loggerhead, leatherback, green and Kemp's ridley turtles.
Open the guide →Brevard County. Canaveral National Seashore protects nearly 58,000 acres of barrier island, open lagoon, coastal hammock and pine flatwoods, including 24 miles of undeveloped beach that provides nesting ground for several thousand protected sea turtles.
Open the guide →Santa Rosa County. The center opened in 2013 in the building of an old state park ranger station at 8740 Gulf Boulevard, inside Navarre Beach Marine Park. It is run almost entirely by volunteers.
Open the guide →Monroe County. Richie Moretti bought the Hidden Harbor Motel in 1981 and turned its saltwater pool into an aquarium. Children kept asking to see a turtle, and the state would not let him keep endangered sea turtles unless he ran a rehabilitation program, so in 1986 he started one.
Open the guide →Martin County. The county's own name for it is Jensen Sea Turtle Beach; locals call it Jensen Beach. A wide sandy Atlantic beach on Hutchinson Island at 4191 NE Ocean Boulevard, and a full park rather than a strip of sand: several picnic pavilions, volleyball courts, restrooms and showers, and the Sand Dune Cafe open seven days a week.
Open the guide →Bottlenose dolphins live year round in almost every bay, pass and inlet in Florida, and the sheltered water is where you actually see them.
Florida sits on the Atlantic flyway with the Gulf on one side, so it carries both resident wading birds and everything passing through.
Alligators are in fresh and brackish water in all 67 counties, so the question is where you can watch them safely from dry land.
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