First Turtle Tracks on Sullivan's

MAY 13, 2025 Joanne Staton was on patrol from Station 19 to Station 13 on Sullivan's Island when she discovered loggerhead tracks near the Sand Dunes Club access path between Stations 17 and 18. Raye Ann Osborne who lives at 18 responded and confirmed that this was a False Crawl and that the turtle turned around below the high tide line without digging a nest.

Raye Ann recorded the GPS location, measured the tracks at 26.6" between rear flipper claw marks and drew X marks over the tracks to show that this crawl had been documented by the Turtle Team and did not need to be reported again. It will be documented in the nest database at www.seaturtle.org

No one knows exactly why our sea turtles make these false crawls, but they are very common. Even on uninhabited islands there are often more of these than nests laid in a season, so it is not necessarily that the nesting female was disturbed by humans. We are hoping that she will return soon and lay some eggs.