At last nesting season has ended for 2025. Every nesting season is different for our loggerhead sea turtles. They naturally vary from heavy to light in nest numbers. In 2024 most beaches on the Atlantic Coast saw normal or high nest totals, including the Isle of Palms. Some experts were predicting that 2025 would be even busier for the Island Turtle Team. However, this did not come to pass. Instead, almost all nest protection groups had fewer nests than normal. Sullivan’s Island was an exception to this with triple the number seen in 2024. The Isle of Palms had only half the nests we saw last season.

     Nesting habitat loss due to erosion on both islands and continued work on the beach near Breach Inlet and in Wild Dunes continue to be the biggest challenges to loggerheads trying to find a safe place to lay their eggs.

     This season we had no problems with coyotes and continued to screen all nests the morning after they were laid. Only a few eggs or hatchlings were lost to the usual pesky ghost crabs or stinging ants. It is gratifying to know that our two islands produced 3,625 hatchlings and most of them made it safely to the ocean.

ISLE OF PALMS

·       28 Nests, 24 False Crawls

·       3014 Eggs Laid, 2577 Hatchlings

·       52 Days Average Incubation

·       108.5 Average Eggs per Nest

·       85% Mean Hatch Success

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND

·       12 Nests, 17 False Crawls

·       1437 Eggs Laid, 1048 Hatchlings

·       52.4 Days Average Incubation

·       109.8 Average Eggs per Nest

·       75.2% Mean Hatch Success