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.

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Thursday, July 16th

No crawls today but a maintenance day. All nests were inspected. Ghost crabs were removed from the traps at #11 and #12. #11 had a hole right by the reed and we lost another egg. It was found in the debris kicked up by the crab. I buried the egg and noted on #11 card. There also were lots of ants. I looked for additional eggshells but it rained on the island last night and could find nothing.

Nest #1 which is due to emerge showed no signs of being ready. A ghost crab had made a hole right by the DNR marker but he was confused!

The secondary pole for new #13 had been moved to the left of the nest and closer. We relocated it 16' behind the reed and noted the change on its card.