The Hunting Island Sea Turtle Conservation Project recorded its 100th nest of the 2020 sea turtle nesting season on Monday. That’s quite a lot of nests signaling an average to above average nesting season this year.
On Monday, the program announced that volunteers found nests #99, #100 and #101 during their early morning patrol. Not too bad at all for a beach that just underwent a restoration project.
Hunting Island can be a bit of a challenge for momma sea turtles coming back to lay their eggs this year because there are no dunes. Dunes are made of loose sand which is easier for a pregnant loggerhead to dig up and they also provide a natural cover for sea turtle nests.
While nobody is predicting how the season will end up on Hunting Island, it is still far off of last year’s all-time record 153 nests.
In fact, 2019 was a record season all along the Palmetto State’s coast.
A whopping 8,798 loggerhead sea turtle nests were laid last season on state beaches; destroying the previous record of 6,444 set in 2016, which had surpassed the then-previous record of 5,193 set in 2013, according to official numbers kept at SeaTurtle.org.
Many believe that more females are coming in to nest in recent years and are believed to be breeding-age adults born in the 1980s when more stringent nest protection was getting underway.
Conservation does work.
As of Monday morning, Hunting Island has seen a total of 101 nests, 52 below the full season total of 153 from last year. Harbor Island has had a whopping 67 nests nests so far while Fripp Island has seen 114. Other local nesting spots are St. Phillips Island with 3, Little Capers Island with 37 and Pritchards Island with 67 nests.
Even little Coffin Point Beach on St Helena Island is having a huge season with an amazing 25 nests as of today, just one less than its record of 26 nests recorded last year.
Hilton Head’s beaches have seen 208 nests (463 total in 2019) and there have been 48 found on Daufuskie Island.
Last year, these local Beaufort-are sea island spots, including Lands End beach on St. Helena Island, accounted for a total of 1,197 sea turtle nests which made up a full 14% of all nests found in the Palmetto State, according to the SCDNR.
With 4 to 6 weeks left in the nesting season, we can’t wait to see what totals 2020 will bring.
Where there’s a sea turtle…..there’s a way.
Enjoy some video of a loggerhead sea turtle digging her nest on Hunting Island…
Article contributed by Gene Brancho
