Monday, June 17, Nest 7R

 The day started out cloudy and cool, but we had a beautiful sunrise. It didn’t last long before the clouds rolled in, which made it a nice walk.

Walking up the beach it wasn’t long before we spotted a crawl. It was a great crawl and a picture perfect body pit.

She came up on the right side, then turn, left laid her eggs and went right back out crisscrossing the incoming crawl. Notice in the above picture bottom right her head and left flipper imprint. This made it very easy to probe for the eggs. Looking up the beach, I could see nests that have been relocated higher up in the dunes.  So I decided that we should also move this one up a little higher.

Donna walked the short end, and Sherry finished walking the long end. Sherri reported that all nests and pn’s are fine. When Donna came, she and Claudia started relocating the eggs.

These eggs were very soft and fresh, when we got to the bottom of the nest we found six broken eggs.

Here is Claudia taking one of the shells for DNA.  I scooped all the broken egg out and took it down to the ocean. We also picked up the rest of the  broken shells to remove from beach.

 Nest 7R Total eggs laid 117. Relocated 111, 6 found broken.  We had three people out today and I am sure they will be disappointed, but we have no control over the turtles.

Text - Sharon

Pictures - Claudia, Sharon

Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance with SCDNR permit number MTP500.