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.
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Leah SchwartzentruberSea Turtle Biologist Archives
May 2023
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