Inventory of Nest #6 on Sullivan's September 1

NEST #6 was found by Michael and Ashley Kirshtein at Station 29 while Cyndy Ewing was patrolling the other end of this section. It was a large clutch of 153 eggs that were first moved to Station 26. But when it was 48 days old with hatchlings almost ready to come out of the nest, we had to do an emergency relocation with permission from SCDNR because it was falling into the surf because Hurricane Erin was passing by. It was moved higher at that some location and turtles came out very soon afterwards. Now the spot where it was first is gone from erosion. Because no tracks were ever reported, and we were not sure, we waited another week before doing today's inventory. It was indeed a pleasant surprise to see that only 4 of the eggs failed to develop. There was also one dead hatchling and one live one who was slightly deformed and was still alive in the nest. Gail Cyzman released it, and it needed help on its way to the ocean. Even though this nest had a 96.7% hatch success, these results did not appear in the nesting database because we had to disturb it and may have skewed the results slightly. We were just pleased to have a Labor Day hatchling to release!