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.

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Friday July 3 Nest 10 and two false crawls

Today we found three crawls as soon as we got on the beach!! Just above marker 2. The first one was the nest- the turtle came up to the newly developing dunes and laid her nest there in the soft sand. The eggs were easy to find, but were deep as she had piled a huge mound of sand over the egg chamber. Nest #10.

Then the two false crawls came fifty feet from the nest. We believe it was the same turtle. She crawled on the beach and encountered an obstacle in the form of a large driftwood tree. Our turtle crawled around it and meandered a bit before returning to the ocean. She came back up in the same spot, avoided the driftwood and went to the dunes, but turned around when she was in heavy sea oats. She only moved 50 feet down the beach to try again. The third time was the charm. Thank goodness!!

Paulette