Blog Post By: Aidan, Sea Turtle Intern
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        Newly hatched loggerheads swim continuously for several days upon entering the ocean. Once out of coastal waters, strong currents from the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre carry hatchlings out into the ocean in a clockwise direction. The majority of hatchlings leave the strong currents and find themselves in a little-known area called the Sargasso Sea. This unique marine ecosystem serves as habitat for North Atlantic loggerheads for up to twelve years of their lives
           The Sargasso Sea is characterized by the dominance of two species of Sargassum seaweed (S. natans & S. fluitans) which live their entire lives floating in the open ocean. Large mats of vegetation are spread out in clumps throughout the Sargasso Sea making it appear like a floating forest in some parts. This ecosystem holds an incredible diversity of species including ten endemic species and many other fish and invertebrates living within sargassum. The shelter provided by sargassum makes it a suitable spot for fish to spawn and live in the earlier stages of their lives. These attributes make this area an ideal spot for loggerhead hatchlings to live unnoticed. In fact, they can hide so well, that this behavior was not even known to science until recently.
           Young loggerheads have plenty of food available to them in the Sargasso Sea. During this stage of life, they are omnivorous and feast on crustaceans, mollusks, jellyfish, and vegetation. These young turtles are provided with ideal shelter in sargassum mats that allow them to remain unseen to most predators. This shelter also allows them to save energy that would be required to swim against strong currents present in the open ocean. Newer research suggests that temperature regulation is another advantage to living among sargassum. The warmth absorbed by the seaweed improves the metabolism of hatchlings allowing them to forage and grow faster.
         Once juveniles have reached a sufficient size as to be unpalatable to most predators, they venture beyond the protection of the Sargasso Sea.  They will then move to foraging grounds in nearshore waters where they will continue to grow until reaching maturity.

We had a nice walk under a starry sky to the inlet. We had no turtle sighting on the way there but were hopeful for one on the way back. There were many individuals walking the beach using white flashlights. Please remember that white lights are not allowed during the sea turtle season and only red lights are allowed. We talked with the individuals with white lights and were able to get a nice dark beach back for our sea turtles.

Closer to the white office building there was a turtle crawl! Upon further inspection, it was clear the turtle had already come and gone! She went way up to the dunes before turning around and heading back to sea. It was too bad we did not get the chance to see her.

In the morning, our turtle team recorded 1 new nest and 8 false crawls! Quite a busy morning. This brings us up to 155 nests on the state park beach. See below for pictures taken from the morning patrol.

We has the pleasure of seeing a loggerhead sea turtle right at the beginning of our walk. Unfortunately she was having a lot of troubles nesting. She has both of her rear flippers but must have some sort of neurological problem, keeping her from nesting. She was unable to dig a chamber but instead just shuffled side to side. We were still excited to get to see a turtle ashore. 

After the walk ended, I waited with this sea turtle as she was next to the Pavilion and the nearby town lights. She ended up leaving at 12:15am, so she was up trying to nest for approximately 2 hours. That poor turtle was so tired. DNR mentioned that there has been a turtle with a similar condition that has tried to nest at Bulls Island in the past. It is believed she has some sort of spinal injury.

The following morning we found three new nests and three false crawls. See below for pictures taken from the morning turtle patrol.

Blog Post By: Rylie, Sea Turtle Intern
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Hi everyone! I’m Rylie, one of the sea turtle interns here with EBSP this summer. I have really enjoyed the last 5 weeks, and I’m even more excited for the next few, because it’s almost hatching season! Hatching season is my favorite part of nesting season - it’s so rewarding to watch the hard work by both staff members and the sea turtles themselves pay off when the hatchlings make their trek to the ocean. I know the odds of catching a boil are rare, but I am hoping to see at least one because they are truly incredible to watch. Although the inventories can be smelly, I am looking forward to beginning those and seeing the hatch success of our nests.
 
Last summer, I worked as a Sea Turtle Intern with the Bald Head Island Conservancy (BHIC) in North Carolina. I gained a lot of experience working with nesting sea turtles, but every state and agency uses different methods and I’ve enjoyed learning so much with EBSP. Bald Head Island is another barrier island, and another popular nesting spot for the loggerhead sea turtle. It has been really interesting to see the differences in the landscapes, turtles, predators, and overall agency operations between BHIC and EBSP. For my BHIC internship, I was part of a team of 6 interns and we would patrol the beach every night from 9 pm to 6 am, making us effectively nocturnal! BHI is a satellite tagging beach, meaning we attempt to identify and tag every turtle that comes on to the beach. We flipper and PIT tagged each turtle if she didn’t already have them, and collected a variety of biological samples and morphometric data. Both agencies send DNA samples to UGA, which I thought was an interesting connection! Both also do Turtle Walks and Nest Adoptions - which are a great way to engage with members of the public who share our same passion. I’ve loved getting to work closely with our volunteers and get to know our visitors during our Night Walks, and I’m looking forward to the second half of the summer!
 
In the future, I am hoping to go to graduate school to research how sea turtles respond to human-induced environmental change, such as climate change. My two internships so far have led me to develop some potential research questions to examine through a Masters program, and I know these experiences will help me to be successful in the future. It is beyond rewarding to directly engage in sea turtle conservation in the field, and I hope my future research has an impact on sea turtle conservation as well.

It was a hot and buggy walk towards the inlet but it was worth it when we got to witness a loggerhead sea turtle nesting. This turtle had already finished laying and was in the process of covering. She must have come ashore early in the evening as it was only 10:15pm when we saw her. We watched her finish covering and took measurements  of her carapace and scanned for a PIT tag. After she thought the eggs were disguised enough, she made the long journey back to the ocean. The tide had receded quite a lot since her incoming crawl so it was a tiring crawl back.

The following morning we marked the nest as 130 on our state park beach. There were two nests found in the morning. The nest we saw we left in situ as it was above the Spring high tide line but nest 129 needed to be relocated to a higher location. See below for pictures taken from the Friday morning patrol.

This morning we found another two new nests and one false crawl. We are now up to 128 nests and 61 false crawls. Both of the nests were situated below the Spring high tide line this morning so they were in need of relocating.

July is our last full month of sea turtle nesting! How many nests will we end up with this season? Time will tell!

On Tuesday evening we had a strong storm roll through around 9pm with a lot of nearby lightning. We had to unfortunately cancel the night walk. I guess the turtles enjoyed the stormy conditions because we found 6 new nests and 2 false crawls during our morning survey. See below for some pictures taken during our morning patrol!

We had a hot and humid walk to the inlet without a turtle sighting. After checking around the corner of the inlet, I was walking back to meet the group when I spotted a dark object emerging from the water, very near where the group was located. I radioed the group and all the lights were turned off and everyone sat still as the loggerhead proceeded to crawl ashore to find a place to nest. Unfortunately, she crawled to an area with a steep scarp with no suitable place to nest. She tried a few different places before ultimately turning around and heading back to the ocean. On her way back we were able to take a measurement of her carapace and scan for a PIT tag. Her carapace length was 99.2cm and no PIT tag was found.

The following morning we found the one false crawl from the night before and one new nest! With very little turtle activity that evening, we were blessed to get to see a sea turtle! Who knows, perhaps the one that nested was the turtle we saw and she was able to return and successfully lay! This nest is marked as nest 117 on our state park beach.

​See below for pictures from the morning patrol!

Blog Post by: Autumn, Sea Turtle Intern

The relocation of eggs that have been laid in unsafe locations is a popular strategy for conservationists all across the world. Indeed, nests of crocodiles, sea turtles, and some birds have all benefited from this sort of artificial assistance (Pfaller 2009). Vulnerable nest relocation is even a strategy that we even employ here at Edisto Beach State Park during our morning turtle patrol. We relocate about 20% of nests that we deem to have been laid too close to the water or in an otherwise unsafe location, and we move them somewhere where they are not in danger of being washed away. However, I have recently wondered whether saving eggs laid in vulnerable locations may impose artificial selection that maintains poor nest-site selection. In other words, if we save turtles whose mothers laid them in unsafe locations, might they follow in mom’s footsteps and lay unsafe nests as well, negatively affecting the success of future generations?

For this to be the case it would have to be true that some loggerheads consistently nest in unsafe locations while others nest in more safe locations, and also that they can pass this nest-location-selection trait on to their offspring. Thankfully, from what we know about sea turtles it appears that this is not a problem. First of all, loggerhead sea turtles do not consistently select nest sites at particular distances from the high tide line. Instead, the selection of unsafe nesting sites is distributed throughout the population, with an astonishing 97% of turtles selecting an unsafe nesting location at least once in their life (Pfaller 2009). Loggerheads seem to randomly choose to nest too close to the water, and they seem to do it at least once in their life. This means that relocating eggs vulnerable to the tide and erosion saves a lot of hatchlings, and it also means that the hatchlings that were saved are likely to choose safe nesting locations in the future when they hopefully return to Edisto! The wellbeing of our nesting population of sea turtles depends on many dynamic factors including environmental and anthropogenic impacts that we are just beginning to understand. One thing we do know is that from daily lifestyle changes to turtle patrol relocations there is a lot that we can be doing to help.

​Pfaller, Joseph B., et al. “Nest-Site Selection in Individual Loggerhead Turtles and Consequences for Doomed-Egg Relocation.” Conservation Biology, vol. 23, no. 1, 2009, pp. 72–80., doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01055.x.

We had a beautiful night walk last night under a starry sky with enough of a breeze to keep the bugs at bay. We also saw some interesting lights in the sky that could have been some sort of military testing, or were they UFO's? I guess we will never know...

Unfortunately, we did not get to witness a sea turtle nesting. The following morning we found two new nests. The tracks of these two nests were very long, so these turtles must have come up during low tide. These nests are marked as 112 and 113 on our beach.

On Tuesday night, we unfortunately did not get the chance to witness a sea turtle nesting. We had some nearby thunderstorms that were threatening but ultimately they veered further offshore and we were able to still walk. 

The following morning we found 3 new nests and 1 false crawl. These nests are 107, 108 & 109. 

We had a beautiful, starry and breezy walk to the inlet without any turtle sightings. On our way back we were still hopeful that we may get to witness a nesting turtle. We made it back to the office building and we did a quick check to the right of the office, when turtle tracks were spotted!

I crawled up her tracks to see where she was and what she was doing. I could hear the noise of her scooping out the sand for the egg chamber. We patiently waited as she dug a chamber big enough to fit her clutch of eggs. Once she started to lay, we got to witness her finish laying her eggs, cover and return to the ocean. This was a large loggerhead, measuring 107.2 cm in length of her carapace. She also had many different organisms occupying her shell, truly representing her nickname of "moving ecosystem".

The following morning on dawn patrol, only one nest was found! We were blessed to be able to witness the only turtle that nested on our beach that night. This nest is marked as 102 on our state park beach.

We are excited to share that we have officially surpassed 100 nests on our state park beach! This morning we found 3 nests and 2 false crawls. This brings our tally to 101 nests and 38 false crawls. Our volunteers, Ashby & Tabytha, had the pleasure of marking nest 100! 

Last night we had the pleasure of witnessing a loggerhead sea turtle lay her eggs, cover and then return to the ocean. We walked 0.4 of a mile when I spotted a dark object near the high tide line. We patiently waited from a distance until she found her spot, dug her chamber and started to lay. 

We had quite an eventful morning! First, I found a nest that was situated between the Pavilion and the beach access steps. This is not a great place for a nest due to the erosion in this area. It was also laid below the Spring high tide line, so it was relocated. In total we found 5 new nests and 1 false crawl. The turtle from last night was marked as nest number 97 on the state park beach. We decided to relocate this nest in the morning as it was below the Spring high tide line. This turtle laid 128 eggs! See below for pictures from this morning!

​We had our first night walk on World Sea Turtle Day!
 
We are still running our night walk program this year but it looks a lot different than previous years. You can learn more about this program and pre-register by calling our Environmental Learning Center, 843-869-4430.
 
On our first night walk, following the presentation, we walked all the way to the inlet without a sighting. Once at the inlet we were able to catch the last glimpse of a loggerhead sea turtle before she slipped beneath the waves. Unfortunately, she did not nest and had a very long and tiring looking false crawl. Hopefully she returned later to nest.
 
In the morning, we did not get any photos of the false crawl that we saw, as the high tide had washed it away.
 
On dawn patrol we found 3 new nests and recorded 2 false crawls. This brought our total to 92 nests and 32 false crawls.

We have been busy keeping up with our nesting sea turtles and also welcoming our three new sea turtle interns to the Edisto Beach State Park! Our interns, Autumn, Rylie & Aidan have been enjoying the busy nesting mornings and learning more about our loggerhead sea turtles.

Stay tuned for future posts from our interns!

We are excited to share that the Edisto Beach State Park has found the first nest of the season on our 1.5 mile beach. The nest was found on May 10th by our volunteer, Krystal and her daughter! They were very excited to celebrate Mother's Day with a nest! They also recorded two false crawls found as well. See below for pictures from the first nest. The first nest in South Carolina was found on Lighthouse Island on May 1st. So we knew that we would get our first nest any day.
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Here is to the start of the sea turtle nesting season! Stay tuned for more turtle updates!

Good Morning Blog Readers,

Sorry I have been so MIA this season, it has just been so busy!

Well, our season is officially wrapped up today. I will be inventorying the last nest (that has reached it's 70th day of incubation) this morning once the rain and thunder recede.

We had a very successful season, with our 351 loggerhead nests. We lost approximately 15 nests to Hurricane Dorian, which considering the impact, is not too bad. We did have 7 nests emerge post-Dorian and although they were not super successful, it was amazing to have at least a few hatchlings make it out after all of those high tides.

To see more statistics on our nesting season you can visit the link below to be taken to our beach page on seaturtle.org, which is an online database where we enter all of our nest information.

So what are my plans this off-season? Well, I am currently training to run the Charleston Marathon on January 11th 2020! I am excited to be tackling this goal of mine. I am planning on using this race as a fundraiser for our turtle project, so stay tuned for more information once I get it all set-up.

Thanks for your support for our turtle program! 

Our last night walk of the season was held on Tuesday. We only run the night walks in June and July as that is the peak of the nesting season as well as our interns are leaving shortly. They have been a lot of fun and fairly successful this season!

On our last night walk, we got to see one straggler leave from nest 92. Cadey, our intern, helped it out as it was stuck in the roots and got left behind from the rest of the hatchlings. A little bit further down the beach and we got to see nest 94 emerge! They were already heading from the nest and unfortunately were having a hard time finding the ocean as it was near the new moon and the horizon was not the brightest point. Our volunteers and myself were able to reorientate them and save them from heading back towards the lights across the marsh.

The following morning, our patrol team found that 6 nests had emerged! 

What a great way to end our night walk program this year! Thanks for all of the support for our turtle program. 

What an amazing season it has been and we could not have done it without the help of our interns! They did an amazing job of marking nests, leading patrols, leading night walks and educating the public. They are almost done their internship as they head back to school soon. Shown in the picture below is our two sea turtle interns, Cadey and Chloe and our environmental learning center intern, Hannah. Thanks again for your enthusiasm and hard work this season!

It was the last night walk for our intern, Chloe, and she was in charge of leading the presentation and the walk. She did a great job in finding us hatchlings! We got to see hatchlings make their way to the ocean. Unfortunately with the new moon, the horizon was very dark and was not the brightest point so our hatchlings were getting disorientated. Thankfully everyone was helping out and letting us know when they found a confused hatchling. 

The following morning, our patrol team found four nests had emerged! 

Our night walk program was led by our intern, Cadey. Not too far into the walk there was a dark object emerging from the ocean, in between Cadey and our night walk group. We held the group and turned off our flashlights. The turtle emerged during the dark night and crawled well above the tide line. After several minutes, I crawled up to see what stage of nesting she was at. She was still digging her egg chamber so we waited patiently. During that time, three raccoons tip-toed up near the dunes towards the turtle. I was nervous they would startle her but as soon as they saw me they quickly ran away. 

Once she started to lay, the group was able to see her closer. Our group grew in numbers as more and more individuals came from the campground. We got to witness her lay her eggs, cover and then return to the ocean. 

The following morning the patrol team, Chloe and Nona, found two new nests and 1 hatched nest (pictures to be posted soon). The nest from the night walk is nest 341 on our state park beach. If you would like to adopt the nest, click on the button below to be taken to the adoption page. The unique ID of nest 341 is: 267874. Part of the proceeds goes back towards our turtle program.

We were unable to walk last night after Chloe finished the presentation, as there was a thunderstorm that hit Edisto. The following morning, there were no new turtle nests or false crawls. The morning team, Cadey and Lea, discovered three nests emerged. 

We are hosting an inventory program tonight (7/24) at 6:30 p.m., where we go to a nest that has hatched and we dig it up to see the success rate. We count the hatched eggs, unhatched eggs and sometimes there are hatchlings still below! So come on out to hopefully get the chance to witness a sea turtle hatchling and to learn more about our Edisto sea turtles.

​We had an eventful night walk last night! We ran into a what seemed like the same picky turtle a few different times. She came up onto the beach and false crawled before she got past the tide line each time. But we got to catch her crawl back into the water. We also came across the one nest we had on our beach last night but the turtle had already come and gone. We caught a beautiful moon rise as well!


The following morning our patrol team marked the nest we saw, found 8 false crawls, and 3 hatched nests!

If you would like to adopt the new nest found, 338, click on the button below to be taken to the adoption page. The unique ID for nest 338 is: 266901. Part of the proceeds goes back towards our turtle program.