Waties Island Sea Turtles

Waties Island, the northernmost barrier island in South Carolina is roughly 4.0 km in length. It is a private undeveloped barrier island at the border of North/South Carolina. All sea turtle monitoring by this group is authorized by the SCDNR Marine Turtle Conservation Program under Permit MTP500. We strive to help protect the sea turtle, and we are at it again this season! The site will be updated often during the nesting season - May 1st through October.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Inventory of Nest 23

Today the Sunday walkers were joined by a large group of students from Coastal
Carolina's Sea Turtle Club to observe and help inventory Nest 23. This nest was laid on
Friday, July 19 and emerged on Thursday, September 12, day 55. Today we found 113 hatched
eggs and 4 unhatched eggs and two dead hatchlings. Adding the shells found strewn on the surface on the day the nest emerged, our totals are 129 eggs laid by our mother turtle. 123 hatched and 6 unhatched for a hatch success of 95%!! This is a great result!!
Nest 22 continues to be disturbed by a wild canine and so the nest is going to be inventoried this afternoon. Stand by for that story. Nest 24 remains quiet on day 56.