It was a lovely morning to be out on the beach after the hot days of July. Leslie took a truckload of volunteers to help with the inventory and met up with the walking members of the Monday team.
Additional volunteers join the Monday team at the nest to complete the inventory.
Since everyone there had experience with inventories, Leslie didn’t have to explain the process. The nest had been laid on Friday so Kim, the lead that day, gave the specifics of the crawl. It was found on 06/27 at the lower end in the middle of the beach. The crawl measured 33” and there barnacle drag in the middle of it. Because of the tide, it was decided to move the nest to higher ground. The nest chamber was 20” deep. They found 121 eggs, took one for DNA, and reburied 120.
On day 56 we thought we had a partial emergence. There was beautiful emergence hole but due to the wind, rain, and high tide from hurricane Erin, a limited number of tracks were observed. The Saturday team did not find any additional tracks, but did find one dead hatchling outside the nest. That made the emergence date Friday, 8/22 and inventory scheduled three days later on 8/25.
After the diggers and sorters were assigned, we got right to work. It was a very quick and successful inventory - 90 hatched eggs and 25 unhatched egg no hatchlings were found. The hatch and emergent success was 74.3%.
Summary by Sharon
Pictures by Sharon and Kim
Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance with SCDNR permit number MTP 500.
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