Turtle Season is Here Again!
The first nest on the entire Georgia coast in 2022 was laid on Sea Island on May 3! From May 1-October 30, Loggerhead turtles will be nesting on the Sea Island beach and hatchlings will be making their trip to the ocean.
Owners of ocean-front residences should make sure to turn off exterior lights at night, since bright lights confuse the turtles and can disrupt nesting. Please keep your distance from nesting turtles as well as from nests marked by yellow stakes, and keep your dogs leashed and away from the nests. Also, make sure to remove all personal items, including tents, chairs, umbrellas, coolers, etc., from the beach each evening so that they don’t block the turtles’ paths. If you have renters or guests, please ask them to follow these rules as well.
Should you wish to learn more about the turtles, sponsor a nest, or take a Sea Turtle Dawn Patrol or Night Walk, please contact the Sea Island Nature Center at 912-634-4499. For more information about Sea Turtles on Sea Island and the Sea Island Adopt-A-Nest program, click on “read more” below.
• Sea Island’s sea turtle nest adoption project has brought in over $68,000 in donations since the program began and over $50,000 in just the last five years! 100% of the proceeds from this project go to the Wildlife Conservation Fund within the Georgia Department of Natural Resources which relies solely on federal grants and donations to operate. Proceeds directly assist in conducting research, collecting data, and training sea turtle technicians along the Georgia coast.
• The Georgia Department of Natural Resources requires approximately $220,000 a year to operate the state’s sea turtle conservation program. Donations to Sea Island Adopt A Nest project have been used for two main initiatives over the years. These include hiring seasonal staff to survey remote beaches for sea turtle nesting activity on islands such as Sapelo and Ossabaw and purchasing survey equipment such as ATVs, fuel, wooden stakes, and predator screens. These supplies allow technicians to patrol the full length of Georgia’s beaches and work to protect the threatened loggerhead sea turtle population.
• For the first time in 2021 Sea Island achieved a 100% nest adoption rate! That means that every single sea turtle nest laid along the Sea Island beach was adopted. This year the Sea Island nature team is excited to expand upon the program to allow for even more guests and members of our community to get involved. We hope that the Sea Island tradition of adopting a sea turtle nest will only continue to grow and even set a new record for donations to the wildlife conservation fund!
Sea turtle nesting season stats from last year:
• The nature team located 78 nests on Sea Island in 2021
• All 78 nests were adopted!
• The nest adoption project brought in $13,610 in donations to sea turtle conservation research
• We counted 4,824 sea turtle hatchlings
• We identified 42 individual nesting mother sea turtles last season
• We patrolled over 1,550 miles of beach
• The first nest to hatch on the Georgia coast last year was right here on Sea Islands on July 14th!
Updates so far from this season:
• The nature team began patrolling the beach on May 1st!
• We located the first nest laid on the whole Georgia coast on May 3rd!
• We expect to find many more nests throughout May, June, and July and will be on the lookout for hatchlings starting in late June.