Four sea turtle nests narrowly escaped destruction by an excavator which was operating on a section of Seven Mile Beach to clear vegetation from an empty lot.

When they arrived on the scene Tuesday morning, Department of Environment [DoE] volunteers and staff stopped the excavator from driving over a nest. DoE personnel determined that three additional nests were in the area which had already been cleared, but over a two-hour period they were able to locate all three nests and confirm that the eggs were undamaged, having been narrowly missed by the heavy excavator tracks.

During turtle nesting season (May to November) turtle nests are incubating under the sand on beaches around the three islands. They take 50-60 days to hatch and are not visibly marked due to poaching.
You cannot tell if there are nests by looking at a beach.

Driving or use of heavy equipment on the beach can crush turtle eggs or compact the sand above them, depriving them of oxygen and preventing them from hatching.

In addition to refraining from operating heavy equipment on the beach during turtle nesting season, other protective measures include not raking over turtle tracks on the beach, consulting with DoE before clearing Sargassum, and obtaining a permit for beach bonfires from Department of Environmental Health.