BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A sad end for a 400-pound loggerhead sea turtle.

What You Need To Know

  • 400-pound loggerhead sea turtle killed earlier this week

  • The turtle was struck and killed on a Brevard County road

  • A UCF research team was able to retrieve the turtle's eggs and dig a new nest

​The large animal was struck and killed in beach-side Brevard.

The crash happened early Tuesday on A1A when a car hit and killed a loggerhead as it made its way into the street. The opposite way from the ocean.

"As she was wandering and trying to find a place where she could nest, up a sandy pathway towards a yard," said Erin Seney, Ph.D., University of Central Florida Marine Turtle Research Group. "She was going in a very wrong direction."

Seney said the mother tried to nest one more time on the dune before going into the road. She said the turtle had a previous flipper injury which already made it difficult to nest, and had been tagged by the research team back in 2014.

The UCF Marine Turtle Research Group team was able to collect 70 intact eggs and, with permission from Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, dug their own turtle nest on the beach.

"We were glad there was sort of a silver lining to this situation," Seney said.

Nesting season is going well, according to Seney. Numbers are a little behind 2020's pandemic explosion of loggerhead nests in central and south Brevard.

And despite this terrible incident, it's a chance to make sure people know the rules when it comes to observing and not disturbing nests.​

FWC is investigating the incident.

Meanwhile, the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group​ will monitor the nest over the next few weeks to check on the hatchlings’ progress.