Island Turtle Team - Isle of Palms - Sullivan's Island

Last night one loggerhead nested at Station 20 and another crawled ashore four times closer to Breach Inlet before finally laying her eggs. Nest #11 was found by Lowell Grosse who was on patrol with his friend Jim Newman. The eggs were laid on the flat beach below the spring tide line. It was a clutch of 140 eggs where two were found broken in the bottom of the egg chamber. One shell was used for our required genetics sample and the other 138 were relocated up onto a dune nea

Linda Rumph and Phyllis Nathanson discovered Nest #2 for Sullivan's Island today near the Dangerous Currents sign at Fort Moultrie. We suspect that this is the same loggerhead who crawled up not far from there yesterday near the Sand Dunes Club, bumped into the dead trees in the intertidal zone, and went back to the water without laying her eggs - not a good spot. She can postpone laying them for about a week if necessary. The track size matched exactly. But this time she le

We ended the 2025 Nesting Season by inventorying Nest #12 on Sullivan's Island exactly two months after it was laid on August 4. This nest was found by Diane Brumley and Jenn Gragg on the beach at Fort Moultrie where it would have washed away by now. It contained 99 eggs and was relocated to a low dune near the Sand Dunes Club where it incubated for 58 days before producing hatchlings on October 1. The long incubation was probably caused by the cooler than usual weather in Se