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Florida sea turtles are making a come back. Two of the top three species of sea turtles in Florida increased their populations this year. As Whitney Ray tells us, even as their numbers surge danger from damage done to the Gulf of Mexico by the BP oil spill may still pose a threat.

Up at Dawn, Bill Wargo and his team known as the Turtle Patrol comb nine miles of Gulf cost beach looking for nests. Once they spot one. They mark it and record its locations. Conservation efforts like this are paying off.

“We’ve had a total of 1,145 hatchlings successfully emerge from the nest and swim to sea,” said Wargo.

Florida Fish and Wildlife found 12-thousand green sea turtle nests in Florida this year. That’ s a record. And Leatherback turtles saw their second highest nest numbers. The most common Florida sea turtle, the loggerhead saw its nest numbers drop by 10-thousand, but they still well above the record low set in 2007.

While the news is mostly good, there’s a threat looming in the Gulf of Mexico. No one knows what the long term impacts of the BP oil spill will be on Florida’s sea Turtles or the entire gulf coast ecosystem.

At the peak of the crisis in the summer of 2010, a massive nest moving operation was underway to relocated eggs from the gulf to the east coast of Florida.

The Florida Wildlife Federation is asking Congress to put 80 percent of the money BP pays in environmental fines to in to gulf coast restoration, so among other things, turtles can find safe places to nest.

“We need long term ecological monitoring of the fish and wildlife populations in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Manley Fuller with the Florida Wildlife Federation.

The Legislation is being debated in the US House and Senate. There’s also debate over how high BP’s fines should be.

Conservationists say the biggest threat to turtles right now isn’t oil, it’s coastal development. They say turtles have lost dozens of miles of nesting grounds to hotels and beach houses.