Waties Island Sea Turtles 2024: July 14, 2024- Nest 16R

It was a bright and muggy Sunday morning.

The team started walking and there was trash everywhere. Before Tammy and Erin were done with the short end, they already had one full bag of trash. It was not long into the walk before Erin recieved a call about a crawl. Due to the heat and the amount of trash, Billie Jo and Karen finished walking the long end and met Erin and Tammy at the crawl.

When everyone met, Erin told everyone that there may not be a nest, because it was hard to tell how long the mama was on the beach.The tide had washed away the ends of her tracks, and her tracks were very faint. The body pit was promising though, so the team got to work. It only took a few probes to find the egg chamber.

The nest was right at the high tide line, and the king times are coming, so Erin made the decision to relocate it, closer to the dunes. Tammy and Karen quickly removed all the eggs, counting 100 eggs even.

Erin and Billie Jo found a new location for the nest and got all the supplied ready. One egg was used for DNA so the team quickly relocated 99 eggs after creating a new nest, 16R.

We were thankful the new location was close to the original, with the temperatures quickly rising. The team collected all 5 bags of trash and made their way back to the car.