Two More SI Nests

Last night one loggerhead nested at Station 20 and another crawled ashore four times closer to Breach Inlet before finally laying her eggs.

Nest #11 was found by Lowell Grosse who was on patrol with his friend Jim Newman. The eggs were laid on the flat beach below the spring tide line. It was a clutch of 140 eggs where two were found broken in the bottom of the egg chamber. One shell was used for our required genetics sample and the other 138 were relocated up onto a dune near where they were laid.

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Nest #12 was found by Kelsey Willey farther north in the same section. We suspect that this turtle also crawled ashore earlier in the night at Station 28, at Station 27, at Station 26 1/2 before finally laying her nest on a dune between Stations 25 and 26. The nearby tracks were a perfect match. With the help of Vatsa Kadaba we were able to document all four of her crawls. Unfortunately for us, she crossed back over the body pit and erased the field signs that usually help us locate the egg chamber. So we had to probe extensively before the top egg was found and taken for genetics sampling. The nest was marked to incubate in situ with no relocation

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