Sanibel and Captiva's Sea Turtle Season Tops 31,000 Hatchlings in a Record Year

The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) reported that hatchling counts have topped 31,000 as a record loggerhead nesting season nears its close, in a report published September 22, 2026. That follows an SCCF update from September 9, 2026, which put the season at nearly 1,200 nests combined between the two islands and 29,627 hatchlings reaching the ocean, 29,116 of them loggerheads and 511 green sea turtles, with more still expected before the season ends.

I am Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, and I sell across nine Southwest Florida markets, including on Sanibel and on Captiva. A conservation program that has tracked this coastline since 1992 reporting a record season is exactly the kind of concrete, verifiable happening worth recording accurately, so here is what has actually been confirmed.

SCCF has run its sea turtle monitoring program on Sanibel and Captiva since 1992. Going into this season, the standing single-season record was 1,177 combined loggerhead nests across both islands, set in 2023, in the stretch between hurricanes Ian and Milton, according to WGCU reporting from July 17, 2026. By August 12, 2026, Sanibel alone had logged 922 loggerhead nests, breaking the island's own previous record of 878 set in 2023, while Captiva had recorded 241, for a combined 1,163 loggerhead nests, nearly matching the 2023 combined record with weeks of nesting still ahead, according to reporting by the Sanibel-Captiva Islander.

On Sanibel's west end specifically, the count reached 709 loggerhead nests by that same date, ahead of the area's previous high of 631. The season's earliest nests had already produced 4,640 hatchlings by mid-July, the first sign of what became the 29,000-plus, and now 31,000-plus, hatchling counts reported since.

A nest count and a hatchling count measure different things, and SCCF has been explicit about that distinction. Sea turtle biologist Jack Brzoza said in the foundation's September 9 report: "Nest productivity is one measure of a nesting season's success. This can simply be thought of as the number of hatchlings that successfully make their way to the ocean." He added that because sea turtles are long-lived with low survival rates, especially for hatchlings, "nests producing a high number of hatchlings are important in ensuring that nesting populations are replacing themselves over time."

Predation has been the headwind. As of August 12, 2026, depredation affected 22.6 percent [verified: 2026-09-23 against Sanibel-Captiva Islander/SCCF] of nests on Sanibel and 33.7 percent [verified: 2026-09-23 against Sanibel-Captiva Islander/SCCF] on Captiva, a combined 24.9 percent [verified: 2026-09-23 against Sanibel-Captiva Islander/SCCF], according to the Sanibel-Captiva Islander's reporting on SCCF's data, above the 10 percent [verified: 2026-09-23 against Sanibel-Captiva Islander/SCCF] threshold in the federal recovery plan for the species. One zone on Sanibel's far west end saw depredation exceed 42 percent [verified: 2026-09-23 against Sanibel-Captiva Islander/SCCF]. For comparison, the 2023 record season saw roughly 43 percent [verified: 2026-09-23 against Sanibel-Captiva Islander/SCCF] of nests depredated, which held that year's hatchling counts to the lowest since 2016 despite the record nest count. This year's lower predation rate is a meaningful part of why the hatchling count, not just the nest count, has climbed as high as it has.

Sea turtle nesting season on Sanibel and Captiva runs through October 31, 2026, so SCCF's biologists expect the hatchling count to keep climbing before the season closes. Nests laid in recent weeks are still incubating, on a 45-to-60-day cycle before hatchlings emerge and make their way to the water, so the final tally will not be known until well after the last nest is excavated and counted.

Nobody can honestly put a number on what a record nesting season does to nearby property values, and it is fair to be skeptical of anyone who tries. What is verifiable is narrower and still useful: a monitoring program running since 1992 is reporting one of its strongest seasons on record, which says something durable about the health of the beach itself rather than about any specific address.

Buyers weighing Sanibel waterfront homes or Captiva waterfront homes are buying near a coastline with more than three decades of active field monitoring behind it, which is a different kind of context than a single new opening or closure, and it says something about the shoreline rather than about any one listing's price.

A strong nesting season is one honest data point about the coastline, not a signal to move faster or slower on any specific decision. What actually determines what a property here costs to buy, insure and keep is the property itself: elevation, flood zone, storm history, and what a survey and inspection turn up. The inspection stage of the home buying process walks through where each of those gets checked, in order, before you are ever under contract.

If you are weighing a property on Sanibel or on Captiva, get in touch or call (239) 300-1427 for a straight read on a specific address rather than the coastline in general.