People living in parts of southwest Florida are not happy with a new TikTok trend.
They say it is leaving giant holes on beaches and threatening turtles.
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You come and you make castles, you dig holes. It’s what the beach is all about.
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But leaving hand-carved castles or even colossal craters is a big no-no.
“I almost fell in one,” Allison Ward said. “I’ve seen indentations, but I’ve never seen holes like this before.”
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You might too if you’re doing the Sanibel stoop looking for shells or taking a midnight walk under the stars.
These holes aren’t typically what you’d expect to see rather they’re more like shafts up to 5 feet deep and 4 feet wide.
“I found four holes, but two of them were especially deep,” Ward said after finding holes last Thursday and on Monday morning.
It took the power of Sanibel’s Public Works team to get them patched up.
“When we’re looking at the depth and size of some of these holes that we’ve found on the beach, this wasn’t just really a sandcastle,” Sanibel Mayor Holly Smith said.
Same goes down the coast on Marco Island. The police department posted this picture on social media.
On #marcoisland, we like to leave our beaches better than we found them. If you're digging to make a sandcastle or, in...
Posted by Marco Island Police Department on Thursday, June 23, 2022
Look at the shovel for an idea of how big this hole is.
“There was some TikTok challenges saying, ‘How deep can you dig?’” Smith said.
It’s not just for us but for the turtles. This time of year, the beach is busy even when you’re fast asleep.
“We have (turtle) moms on the beach at night. We have babies going to the water at night. They face so many threats already. This is one small thing we can all do to help them,” SCCF Coastal Wildlife Director Kelly Sloan said.
So, here’s the rule. If you dig a hole, fill it back in.
And if you build it, they will come smash it down if you don’t.
So, if you really want to leave your mark on Sanibel there is only one good way to do so, according to Smith, and that’s to just leave your footprints.