AR-News: (FL) Boca Raton turns up heat on turtle egg predators

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pturtles27nov27,0,452290.
story?coll=sfla-news-palm

By Neil Santaniello 
staff Writer 
Posted November 27 2003 


BOCA RATON · First, Kirt Rusenko turned to a liquid called Da'Bomb Ground 
Zero. 

Chicken eggs were spiked with the tongue-scorching hot sauce and placed in 
decoy sea turtle nests. Rusenko, the city's marine conservationist, used the 
ploy to try to wean raccoons and foxes off their hunger for endangered sea turtle 
eggs incubating under the sand. 
The bottled sauce did not work as well as he had hoped, and it drew fire 
ants, another turtle-egg destroyer. 

Still, Rusenko didn't give up on the power of the hot pepper to see baby sea 
turtles safely to sea. He has rebounded with a twist on his egg-defense 
formula, and much better success thwarting nest raiders that creep onto the beach at 
night from sand dunes and oceanfront parks. 

Rusenko now uses hot habanero pepper powder to deter animals with a taste for 
turtle eggs. 

He sprinkles the dried pepper at the turtle nest in holes that predators 
begin to dig to reach the nest cavity. Rusenko also uses flat, 4-by-4-foot squares 
of steel mesh and small steel cages laid over the tops of buried turtle nests 
to help seal off those at risk from excavating paws. 

But Rusenko credits the famously hot habanero, not the metal barriers, for 
this year's record-low losses of turtle eggs to predators. Animals destroyed 
just 20 of 647 nests deposited on Boca Raton shoreline during the 
March-to-October nesting season, compared with the usual 50 to 60, the city's lowest number 
to date, he said. 

Animals that return to tunnel after eggs again "get a nose full of powder, 
and they don't come back," said Rusenko, director of sea turtle monitoring for 
the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. "It's very painful. We get it in our eyes every 
once in a while, and it's not pleasant." 

The screens and cages certainly help keep animals at bay, "but raccoons learn 
real quick how to get around [them]," said Rusenko, who started using the 
powder midway through last summer. 

State sea-turtle protection officials said they are aware of the 
pepper-protection strategy and that it didn't appear interfere with turtle nests. They 
described it as "negative reinforcement" for predators, and said they are 
awaiting a report from Rusenko on his findings. 

"We're OK in this instance," said Meghan Conti, a Florida Fish and Wildlife 
Conservation Commission biologist who oversees South Florida nest monitoring 
work from Tequesta. But, she said, "By no means are we encouraging all of our 
[nest-protection programs] to go ahead and try this." 

Robbin Trindell, a state biologist administrator, said of Rusenko, "He's a 
creative guy. We're willing to wait and see what he finds out." 

Rusenko said this year's rabies epidemic in Palm Beach County virtually 
eliminated foxes, usually the top egg predator, from city beaches this year. But he 
said raccoons turned out in large enough numbers to counter the disappearance 
of beach foxes. 

The powder is used only after nest watchers see signs of digging, Rusenko 
said, adding that it won't harm hatchlings. The tactic even protected the last 
nest on the city beach in October, a clutch of eggs left by an endangered green 
sea turtle. The last nest every season tends to come under heavy attack, and 
this one was no exception -- until it was peppered with pepper, Rusenko said. 

After that, "it sat there for three weeks," untouched before the hatchlings 
emerged, he said. "Everybody went to the water. They were fine." 

Rusenko, who went through eight pounds of the powder this nesting season, 
intends to present his findings to the International Sea Turtle Symposium in 
Costa Rica in February. 

Boca Raton has the Palm Beach County's largest problem with marine-turtle egg 
predators. Rusenko said Boca Raton has tried trapping raccoons -- at $50 per 
animal -- but that the powder he buys for $63 per a 5-pound container is 
considerably cheaper. Moreover, he said, the effect of trapping is only temporary. 
Other raccoons eventually move in and multiply in place of those carted off, 
he said. 

Paul Davis, a county environmental supervisor, has another theory: "I think 
Boca Raton just grows smart raccoons."

He said no other length of county beach experiences animal-nest raids 
significant enough to require intervention to protect eggs. 

Davis said the county once tried sprinkling cayenne pepper to fend off animal 
egg thieves on the north end of the island of Palm Beach, but stopped the 
practice after experimenting with it. 

"Our conclusion was we were just seasoning the eggs," Davis said. "It did not 
slow them down. But maybe cayenne is not as strong as habanero." 

Neil Santaniello can be reached at nsantaniello at sun-sentinel.com or 
561-243-6625.











"The greatness of a nation and it's moral progress can be judged by the way 
it's animals are treated." ...Mahatma Gandhi
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