Three more Nests on IOP and One Nest with three false crawls on SI

Another very busy day for the Island Turtle Team. We were doing an educational program on the beach again this season for the IOP Recreation Center when we kept getting more calls that our members were finding loggerhead tracks on both islands. Right now the heatwave is causing dangerous conditions for being outdoors and some people are struggling against heat exhaustion even early in the morning. Staying hydrated is very important.

Nest #29 was found at Port O' Call in Wild Dunes, again within the beach renourishment project section, by Allen Owens, Bryan Stevens, Laura Lovins and Holly Baron. So the workmen had to hold off until this section was given the all clear by our team around 6:30 am. There were 116 eggs that were safely removed from Wild Dunes and relocated to the area between the 30A and 31st Avenue paths.

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Nest #30 was first spotted by Kerrie Scott after she had finished her patrol from 9th to 30th Avenue. This one was laid at 31st Avenue down low on the beach where the vehicles drive and below the spring tide line. It was in the section north of 30th Avenue and was soon seen by Jane Powers, Sue Googer and Debi Magee who cover from 30th up to 49th Avenues. It contained 103 eggs that were moved up to the primary dunes right there at 31st Avenue for incubation.

Nest #31 was also found by Jane Powers, Sue Googer and Debi Magee farther north at 42nd Avenue. We moved 134 eggs up from the flat beach below the spring tide line there to a dune just south of 42nd. By this time the large crowd of approximately 60 people from the Sea Stroll and Learn program had finished their walk from 25th to 28th Avenues and five of them came up to 42nd to see this relocation. Among them was young Eliza from Dunes West who was taking all of this in and had asked lots of questions at the educational stroll earlier. She learned even more seeing this work actually being done - a future Turtle Lady in the making!

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Meanwhile on Sullivan's Island Linda Rumph and Phyllis Nathanson were covering the southwest section and discovered four sets of loggerhead tracks there.

Nest #14 was laid just SW of the Dangerous Current sign on the beach near Fort Moultrie with a smaller clutch of 98 eggs. This was below the spring tide line as well and the eggs were taken to a place about a block north of the lighthouse where they would be safe. We are hoping that the dunes will be intact throughout the hurricane season and we won't have damage again this season from storms.

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Then they found three more sets of tracks nearby with the same 23" size between flipper claws. These were all false non-nesting crawls but were documented for our nesting data for SCDNR which is on Seaturtle.org . These were at Fort Moultrie just NE of the Station 13 path and then just NE and also SW of the long path at Station 16 that goes through the maritime forest. When you see large X's drawn across the tracks, you know that they have been documented by our team and no need to report them.