Inventory of Nest #4 on Sullivan's August 16

Nest #4 at Station 26 was left in a rather low spot at the base of the primary dune where it was laid on June 24. It was found by Karen Bartlett and Ginger Colvin. We didn't know how many eggs were laid because we left the nest to incubate in situ which it did for 50 days. It was threated by tidal erosion on August 9 which washed away several inches of sand but did not expose the eggs. Then it had the usual threats from ghost crabs digging into it and even some ants the night before the hatchlings came out. It’s never easy being a hatchling sea turtle with so much to overcome and survive! The sign, taller sticks and screen were even washed away from the egg chamber during the first tidal surge and had to be put back. The short backup sticks showed us where the eggs were buried even though the triangle was gone. We are so happy that many came out of it early in the morning on August 13 and made it to the water. Today we discovered that there were 82 empty eggshells, 69 unhatched eggs and 16 live hatchlings that Ginger and Karen released before an excited crowd. It appeared that ground water had entered the egg chamber repeatedly from high tides because the eggs on the bottom of the nest were ruined. Because of this Hatch Success was only 53.9% and Emergence Success was 43.4%.

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