These turtles carried to the waves of the hurricane were swept to Fort De Soto, Florida

Just hours after Hurricane Helen’s record-breaking storm surge retreated from the coast of Fort Soto, Dave Hirschberger noticed something strange in the destruction.

The county parks he overseen are devastated, and the garbage and concrete once ruined the powder-white sandy beaches.

However, something stood out among the tile rub. The sea and the coast met, and in the shallow waves there was a tannish brown gopher turtle. And another. And another.

“That’s strange,” Hirschberger thought to himself. For one, Gopher turtles are land-dwelling reptiles, often living in dry sand dunes and forests. 2: On about 1,100 acres of the park there were only eight known turtles.

And 3: Gopher turtles don’t swim.

Park manager Harshbarger moved some turtles towards dry land. However, as the first person to return to Fort Soto after the storm, his to-do list was growing. He made a mental note to check the turtle later before moving to investigate more damage.

A few days later, Annayu, a Pakranger, found another 16. “It was definitely wild,” she said. At that time, she and other park staff began to suspect that these were not just turtles from the park, which had been confused amidst the storm.

They arrived from somewhere.

These suspicions were confirmed when a longtime professor at Eckerd College Biology investigated the turtle shell. In 1994, Peter Meylan and his students began tracking the population of Egmontkey, a remote island that is more than two miles off the beach in Fort DeSoto.

Meylan drills small holes in the sides of each shell to identify a particular animal. His team has scored hundreds over the years. The turtle found at Fort Soto had clear markings from Meiran’s team. It is proof that they came from a distant island.

That is, on that chaotic night in late September, dozens of Gopher turtles survived a journey across miles of open water, being swept away by the rains surges from Hurricane Helen.

Whether the turtle floated in the waves of the rift or caught up with debris in the water, how it happened – how it would not be fully understood. However, when they arrive at the shore, it is clear that they are confused. Harshbarger said he found a turtle coughing in the seawater and someone trying to eat a stormy fragment.

“All I could think of was that I must have felt that these turtles were during the storm, and that dangerous journey,” Yu said. “That’s insane.”

The Gopher turtle population at Fort Soto is likely 10 times larger than before Helen, with more than 80 burrows being seen throughout the park, Yu said. And more active burrows continue to rise. Last week, Yu found two more.

With the help of two Eckerd College experts, Yu tracked down the turtle and settled in her new home. Before the storm, Professors Elizabeth Folis and Tim Brunsford had installed several moving cameras to study the range of animal species in the park. When the new arrival was washed, it was easy for the duo to reposition the cameras and monitor the turtles.

“When we heard about the turtle, we said, ‘This is so amazing, unusual,'” Foris said. The footage shows turtles coming and going into the burrow, showing mating behavior and thriving overall.

With signs that the reptiles may have been rattling by their journey, several turtles are digging holes at higher elevations throughout the park. For example, two dens on the central beach of the park were dug just above the high water line left by Helen. One turtle has more problems. A hole was dug at the top of the historic military fort about 30 feet above.

“The guy said clearly, ‘I’m not going to do it again,'” Hirschberger joked. After the hurricane rolled over, “It was the turtle version of the move to Tennessee.”

Not all turtles were that lucky. Yu said he found over 40 dead turtles in the aftermath of Helen.

Meylan, Ecker’s professor who originally studied Egmont’s main population, said it’s not surprising to learn that the turtles have been washed away by the beaches of Fort de Soto. He theorizes animals that are likely to float there as examples of similar circumstances, including the Galapagos Islands and Bermuda, and points to other turtle populations on remote islands around the world.

“Turtles are really good at dispersing over water, and perhaps they’re part of their success as a group like this,” Meylan said.

Scientists invoke these “natural dispersion” events when they move the animal from one place to the next – the forces of nature, wind, water, gravity – the power of nature. For example, millions of years ago, Madagascar’s famous lemurs may have arrived on a natural raft that was pushed across the ocean by strong winds. Puffy dandelions use the wind to disperse seeds several miles away. The squirrels fill in acorns they never find, just as they are sprouting new oak trees.

Natural dispersal is etched in Florida’s history, with hundreds of miles of coastlines infused by millions of years of storms welcome. Even recently, Pinellas County was a rare visitor recipient. In 2023, the boat rescued St. Pete Beach off Flamingo after Hurricane Idria.

Experts have released an impressive bird called Peaches, where other flamingos were blown away after a storm: Fort De Soto Park.

“When I study wildlife, I always hear about these major dispersed events,” says Professor Eckard Bransford, who is currently monitoring turtles. “So it’s really unique to be where it actually happened because it sounds so unlikely.”

With dozens of turtles called the Fort de Soto home, park staff urge the public to be careful.

This means providing new arrivals (and their burrows) space, slowing down the main roads of the park, reporting injured and dead turtles.

If a park visitor comes to Fort de Soto for the first time since the storm, they may encounter burrows in places they have not previously been, including if they are on the beach itself. In Florida, it is illegal to interfere with turtles and their burrows.

“Fort Soto is known for its beaches. It is a popular spring break destination, and it is all of that, but also a wild place like that,” Yu said. “People need to remember that they need to keep their wildlife wild.”

On a recent morning in the park several feet above Helen’s storm surge peaked, a turtle protruding its head from a burrow scientists called “SD1,” or the first newly excavated nest in the park’s Sandbaden territory.

The historic lighthouse at Egmont Key was on the direct horizon of a burrow about two miles offshore, towering over a tree in the distance. She spins her body back home and can see a faint hole etched into her shell.

It is proof of where she came from.

Report your turtle to an expert

Can you see the turtle? Report to a wildlife biologist tracking your population.

To report a sighting or notify a state expert of a sick, injured or dead turtle, go to myfwc.com/gophertortoise and click the button “Report a sighting of Gopher Tortoise.”