Sunday, February 27th Latest Pictures of the Island

 Hi All - yesterday, I along with Bill Cs help, took the CCU Sea Turtle Club out to do a Beach Cleanup.  We worked on the jetty area and behind the jetty.  Since many of the student's had never been to the island we took them to the western end of the island by Hog Inlet.  This end of the island shows serious erosion of the dunes and the beach.  The trees that were involved in the fire in September are now in the water.  The biggest change is the sailboat.   The sailboat has broken up, the top of the boat is gone and you see into the cabin.  

In the future we may be seeing  pieces of the top of the sailboat coming back ashore.

Enjoy the pictures, compliments of Bill and Leslie

Pictures by the Jetty

Pictures from the western/short end of the island.  Lots of erosion and major change to the sailboat.

 

 The sailboat was scuttled on the island in 2017 - it has been an interest to our volunteers and visitors to the island

2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2017

2017

 

 

 

2018

2018

 

2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020

2021

2021

February 2022

DNA Summary Results for the 2021Nesting Season - February 26, 2022

 February 26, 2022

Hi All - we have received all of the DNA results for the 2021 Nesting Season.  We had six distinct female sea turtles, 3 of these lady sea turtles are recorded as nesting for the first time this year!  Just a quick summary of these lady sea turtles nesting efforts.

Turtle Id - CC0008917 - Nest #1
She laid our first nest on May 6th (earliest nest ever on WI) and it was the first time she visited WI.  After nesting on WI, she headed south and laid 2 nests on Myrtle Beach and 2 nests on Garden City.  She is recorded nesting in seaturtle.org for the years of 2016, 2019, and 2021.

Turtle Id - CC002725
She laid nests #2, #3, #5, #7, and #8, her last nest of the season was laid on DeBordieu Beach on July 28th.  She is recorded in seaturtle.org laying nests in 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, (note two years in a row), 2019, and 2021.  She stays pretty local for her nesting efforts.  In 2016 she laid a nest on Briarcliff, and three on WI.  In 2017 she laid all four nests on WI, and 2019 she laid five nests all on WI.

Turtle Id - CC014207 - New lady recorded in seaturtle.org and nesting on WI, Nest #4
She laid two nests in 2021, her first nest was laid on WI on June 17th, and her second nest (and last nest) was laid on Sunset Beach/Bird Island on July 4th.

Turtle Id - CC014208 - New lady recorded in seaturtle.org and nesting on WI - nests #6, #10, and # 11(wild nest)
She laid five nests in 2021.  She laid three nests 6,10, and 11 (wild nest) on WI.  Her first nest was laid on Kure Beach, NC on June 15th, and her last was laid on WI on August 7th.  She also nested on Sunset Beach/Bird Island.  Since the wild nest does  not have a nest laid date, it may be the missing nest between July 12th and August 7th as recorded in seaturtle.org.

Turtle Id - CC014369 New lady recorded in seaturtle.org and nesting on WI - nest #9
She laid her first two nests of the season on Ocean Isle, then nest #9 on WI on July 24th.  Her last nest was laid on August 6th on Sunset Beach/Bird Island.  

Turtle Id - CC001759, Nest #12This lady is a veteran nesting sea turtle.  She is recorded in seaturtle.org starting in 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.  She laid Nest #12 on July 17th, which was PN#3 (Possible Nest).  This was her last recorded nest of the season. She likes to wander, she laid her first nest of the season on June 8th at Cape Lookout, NC and her second nest on Carolina Beach, NC.  She has previously laid on WI, at the end of the 2016 nesting season, July 26th.


DNA Samples Assigned: 12 (100.0%)
Unique Females: 6 (analysis incomplete)
Nests: 12
  In Situ: 10
  Relocated: 2 (16.6%)
  Inventoried: 11 (91.6%)
  Lost: 1 (8.3%)
False Crawls: 6

Estimated Eggs to Date: 1195
  Eggs Lost: 28 (2.3%)
  Hatched Eggs: 913
  Emerged Hatchlings: 901
  Mean Incubation Duration (all): 61.1 days
  Mean Clutch Count: 106.5 eggs (Relocated Only)

Mean Hatch Success: 69.3%
Mean Emergence Success: 68.5%
Nest Success: 83.3%
Beach Success: 66.6%
Last Updated: 2021-11-30 16:43:58 (87.1 days ago)

I am working on setting up a meeting with the LOA's for the 2022 Nesting Season.  After that meeting, I will be sending out a new Volunteer Application to the current volunteers.  We will be working under the same guidelines as the 2021 season.  We are continuing to keep the daily teams small.

January 2022 - Drone picture of Cherry Grove Point and the western view of Waties Island

 Sharing this drone picture of the flooding from the January 2nd - 3rd, 2022 King Tide of the Cherry Grove point and the western end of Waties Island.  You can see the tree line that marks the Causeway road out to the island.  I had been out to the island after this event and the causeway had lots of water and wrack on the road, so it was under water at some point of this high tide.

Many thanks to Bill C for passing along this drone picture.

Friday, December 31 - Summary of our 2021 Nesting Season

 As we close the 2021 year, I thought it would be a nice touch to give a summary of our 2021 Nesting Season.

Here's our stats and than some notable highlights.

• On May 1st, the COVID virus was still a major issue for the Sea Turtle Monitoring Program, so only the Permit holder and LOAs (Letter of Authorization) were  allowed to walk, at first
  
• May 6th, was our first False Crawl and our FIRST NEST of the season - the earliest nest laid in 10+ years
• Our nest count
• Total of 12 nests
• One "Wild Nest", which was lost to Coyote depredation - it was found due to Coyotes digging up the nest before it emerged
• 2 Nests were relocated
• Nest #1 took  84 days to emerge, and an emergency inventory was done on this nest per SCDNR
• The average incubation time was 63 days
  
• Last nest laid on August 7th 
• Last nest inventory was on October 19th, marked the end of our surveys and our season
  
• False Crawls 
• 6 False crawls
  
• Last False crawl was on August 9th
• DNA Results
• At this time we have DNA results for 9 of the 12 nests, missing DNA for nests 10, 11, and 12 - will report on when this information is available
• At this time, we know we have 5 individual mothers who nested on Waties Island
  
• Volunteers were able to start walking on June 13th - only 4 volunteers were allowed to walk per day, along with a LOA
• Started caging all nests on day 45 to protect the nests from the Coyotes
• Started placing plastic netting over the nests to deter those pesky Ghost Crabs, some nest had both deterrents
  
• Saw evidence of both Coyotes and Bobcats patrolling the beach, the Sunday team was lucky to see a Bobcat and her kitten
• 4 King Tides
• 2 Hurricanes which were off the coast, but still caused higher than normal tides
• Return of the Coastal Carolina University Sea Turtle Club students for inventories
• September a small fire was reported, very exciting morning on Waties with the North Myrtle Beach Rescue services responding
• October a site visit by Michelle Pate, our SCDNR contact

I tried to cover items of interest.  If you have not done so, please enter your time and mileage into the Volunteer logging application  http://seaturtle.org/volunteer/  This information helps toward getting additional grant monies for the DNA study.

Again, many thanks to all, so hoping for a better 2022.

Wednesday, December 22, 2021 Happy Holidays

 I was called out to Waties to help with a key and gate issue and with Jackie Boyce drove out to the island.  I was surprised to see how much beach erosion has occurred since my last visit to the island.  Just thought I would share my pictures.

Happy Holidays to all!

These are the trees that were on fire earlier this year

More of the big trees on the short end, are down

These trees cover the path that was cleared after the fire

Lots of erosion, trees down

This bank has gotten higher

The short end

Wrack line from December King Tide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, November 19th - latest visit to the island

 Hi All - it has been quiet for me this past month, no early text messages, no early drives to Waties Island.  I did kayak out to the island on Wednesday to see how the island fared from the last King Tide which was a remarkable 9 feet in our area.  The lower/west end continues to erode and more trees are down.  The path the bulldozer left from the fire earlier this year is completely blocked by downed trees.  The wrack line was high most of the way up the beach.  We only walked about half way up, and picked up a fair amount of trash which included a Garmin Fish Finder.  The sailboat is visible again.

Tuesday, October 19th - Inventory of Nest #10 - 2021 Season is over

 Finally, an inventory on Nest #10

 We had a good crowd on the beach;  Michelle Pate, SCDNR Coordinator for the Marine Turtle Program was doing a site visit, Dr Paul Gayes, eight members of the CCU Sea Turtle Club, most of our leads, and interested volunteers, Richard Green a videographer and Judy Johns, a photographer both from CCU.  We had three truck loads heading to the beach a little after 9:00 am this morning.

This nest was laid on August  7th, the mother's crawl was 32 inches wide, and it was a shallow nest, about 12 inches deep.  She wandered around a little before heading back to the ocean.  As suspected,  this nest did not produce any viable hatchlings.  We dug up 88 eggs that had not hatched, so no emergence.  There were a few broken pieces, unsure where they came from.  Earlier in the season, this nest was plagued by Ghost Crabs, we lost 2 eggs to these pesky Ghost Crabs, and one egg was used for DNA - 3 plus the 88 unhatched eggs = a total of 91 eggs in this clutch.  Both the Hatch and Emergence Success rate was zero.

We did open several of the discolored eggs, and many had developed hatchlings, they had the yolk sac attached.  At this time, I can not give a definitive answer on why they passed before hatching, but I would guess a possible over-wash, possibly the high wave action we had when Hurricane Larry passed the South Carolina coast.  From the comments I heard, I do not think the King Tide caused these deaths, I believe they perished before this event.  Sad, but Mother Nature is not always kind.

After the inventory, several of us participated in an on-line class discussion with Dr Gayes, several of our volunteers took a last walk up to the long end.  I gave Michelle and several students and volunteers a driving tour of the island.  We all got out by the jetty and looked across to North Carolina.  We picked up the walkers and headed back to the shed, we arrived back about 11:30.

The 2021 Nesting season is officially over.

Many thanks to everyone who helped with the transportation, talking to the students, assisting in the inventory, and helping to manage everything I missed.
Lots of people, like herding cats.

Let the digging begin . . . .

 

First egg uncovered

 

 

Nest results - 88 Unhatched Eggs

 

 

Exploring what is in the eggs

Michelle Pate, SCDNR

 Received more pictures, these are posted here - thanks to Melissa F

Along with the CCU Students we had Mr Richard Green and Ms Judy Johns photographing and videoing our inventory.

Ms Judy Johns

Mr Richard Green