Received the SCDNR email Sunday night to apply the guidelines in Section 8 Major Storm Response Guidelines distributed and managed by SCDNR. These guidelines recommend that all of our supplies be removed off of the beach, and to mark our nests with wooden stakes, and they recommend taking pictures of the nests, including the background that may help locate nests, if our wooden stakes are washed away from storm surge. We do this so our plastic or metal items are not washed away by storm surge - we do not want to add to the ocean pollution.
On Monday afternoon, during high tide, there were two teams of volunteers who removed our items from the beach. We also experienced several showers while out on the island. I had mapped out our nests and split the island into two teams. Thankfully, we have two trucks, one team headed up to the upper end, and worked on items from Marker 5 to Marker 9. The other team managed the lower end, from Marker 1 through Marker 4.
The "Mile Marker" poles were replaced with tall red painted wooden stakes. All DNA posts, cages, screens, Ghost Crab traps, secondary marker poles, and buckets have been removed. We used red painted wooden stakes to mark our nests. We added a secondary stake that we put higher in the dunes to help us re-locate our nests. At each nest, GPS coordinates were taken again, and pictures were taken to help us locate our nests and our Possible Nests (PNs), just in case they are impacted by tidal surge. Now we just need to wait for the passing of Debby.
Many thanks to the LOAs - Steve and Barbara Demusz, Sharon Turek and Kim Toney. We can not do this without the great assistance from some of the Monday and Wednesday Volunteers. Many, many thanks to our wonderful Volunteers - Kathy Golden, Sherry Kelley, Claudia Beaty, Chris James, and Jewel Mellas. The worked entailed with putting up getting wet, drying out, digging out stubborn poles which felt like they had been set in concrete, digging out cages from hard and through shifting sand, climbing up dunes, hammering posts through concrete like sand and searching for things to paint, carting back and forth to the truck poles, cages, paint and any tool needed to do the job - Ladies you ROCK!
When Debby passes, we will replace what we moved off of the beach. We had a bright spot of the day. A hatchling was found on top of the sand at Nest 05R which emerged on Sunday. The little hatchling was taken to the ocean and placed in a tidal pool. We wished him the best.
Text and pictures by Leslie
Waties Island Performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance with SCDNR permit number MTP500.
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