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Maura Kraus is wondering if her babies have finally come home.

More than 20 years ago, Kraus released about 150 green sea turtles into waters off Collier County.

Now, finally old enough to reproduce, the turtles may be coming home.

DAVID ALBERS / Daily News

One of the few remaining sea turtle nest in the area is lined with a green netting to help block man-made light at Park Shore Beach on Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 in Naples.

Kraus, Collier County’s principal environmental specialist, found her first green turtle nest north of Naples Beach this year. On Sept. 11, the turtle crawled onto Barefoot Beach, dug a nest and slumped back into the water unseen.

Had Kraus caught a glimpse of it, she may have been able to find a sign that it was one of hers. Maybe the tag or even just a scar on a fin where the eight-month-old turtles were tagged before being released into the wild.

“It would have been nice, but now we don’t know for sure,” Kraus said.

Kraus has only heard from two of her turtles over the years. One turned up in the Chesapeake area a couple years after being released. The other was caught by a fisherman in Cuba 14 years after being released. The large female still had a tag in her flipper.

Kraus remembered her well.

“She was one of my runts,” she said.

The fisherman released the turtle unharmed.

The program, called Head Start, was created to rehabilitate green turtles, whose numbers had plummeted. Conservancy of Southwest Florida and Collier County took part in Head Start, bringing baby sea turtles from the east coast and raising them in captivity until they were large enough to elude most predators.

The state stopped the Head Start program long ago for fear that the turtles were becoming too accustomed to humans and because there wasn’t good evidence that the turtles were returning to nest.

However, in recent years scientists believe that conservation efforts over the past three decades for the green sea turtle and leatherback sea turtle are producing positive results, said Anne Meylan, a senior research scientist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.

Unfortunately the same is not true for the loggerhead, one of Southwest Florida’s most common nesters.

Over the past 18 years, loggerhead nests in Florida have declined 28 percent, according to a study by Meylan and her partner, Blair Witherington. Since 1998, the turtle’s nesting activity in Florida decreased by 46 percent, the study reports.

This year is shaping up to be one of the worst.

Collier and Lee counties had their second-worst years on record for sea turtle nesting.

In Collier, there were 449 nests compared to 561 nests last year. Only 314 of the nests hatched this year. Others were preyed upon by animals or swamped by surf.

Turtle Time, a nonprofit sea turtle monitoring program in Lee County, recorded 50 nests on Bonita Beach, Big Hickory Island, Fort Myers Beach and Bunche Beach. The 50 nests produced 4,021 hatchings. Compared to 2000, the best year Turtle Time has witnessed since it started counting nests in 1989, it’s a meek turnout. The organization counted 11,215 hatchings in 2000, with 105 nests on Bonita Beach alone.

“That’s what we’re hoping for again,” said Eve Haverfield, president and founder of Turtle Time. “There were nests everywhere.”

This year, officials at Lovers Key State Park counted 17 nests with over 1,300 hatchings compared to 30 nests last year and 12 nests in 2005.

Scientists aren’t sure exactly what is causing the decline in Loggerhead nests. They believe it’s a combination of several factors including disease, development on beaches and human interaction, such as long-line fishing and boat-related strikes.

“There is no one answer to the problem,” Meylan said. “It’s not like there is a smoking gun and we’re going to fix it and loggerheads will come back. What exactly is causing the very sharp decline can be debated.”

Sea turtles’ range, which can take them all over the world, makes the cause of the decline hard to track.

Southwest Florida isn’t the safest place for them, either. Last year, 109 sea turtles stranded along the coast in Collier County. Many succumbed to red tide.

It’s also hard for scientists to pinpoint when the decline began. Since loggerheads can take up to 30 years to reach sexual maturity, the decline in nesting activity could be caused by something that occurred decades ago.

“What you’re seeing now is the result of how things were 20 years ago, like light from a star,” Meylan said. “It could be something that happened a long time ago or started a long time ago and is continuing.”

The good news is there is evidence that conservation efforts for green sea turtles and leatherback sea turtles are starting to pay off.

Scientists are researching ways to apply those successes to the loggerhead.

As for Kraus’ green sea turtle nest on Barefoot Beach, it is set to hatch Nov. 11.

“We’re hoping to see green babies,” Kraus said.