Harbor Island Sea Turtle Project

Harbor Island has a Loggerhead Turtle Program focused on protecting sea turtles and their nests. Last night we all (the J-Ms, MorMor, and MorFar) went to a “Turtle Talk” where we learned all about the sea turtles and the Harbor Island program. It is run and operates entirely by volunteers. Harbor Island (and the Sea Islands up and down this area of the South Carolina coast) are popular nesting grounds for loggerhead turtles. The mama turtles come onto the beach at night — between May and October — to lay their eggs up along the edge of the dunes. It takes about 50 days, and then — if all goes well — the eggs will hatch. The hatchling baby turtles will then make their way back to the sea. Out of every 1,000 loggerhead turtle eggs, only 1 will survive to make it all the way to adulthood (age 30). The females will go back, and lay their eggs in the same general vicinity as where they were born. If they survive, sea turtles can live to be up to 60 years old. But many don’t survive — in part due to natural circumstances, and in part due to human-made circumstances (boats, litter, alterations to the beaches and dunes, etc., etc., etc.). Loggerhead turtles were on the endangered species list. But because of the efforts of volunteer programs like the Harbor Island Sea Turtle Project, loggerhead turtles are slowly coming back and are no longer on the official endangered list. They are, however, still pretty rare, and are in need of lots of protection to ensure they don’t go back into endangerment.

Early every morning, from May through October, the Harbor Island Sea Turtle Project volunteers go walk the beaches (here on Harbor Island it is a 3 mile strip of beach). They look for mama turtle tracks. This morning MorMor and MorFar went out early to take a look for themselves. Sure enough, it turns out that last night a mama turtle did lay a nest on the Harbor Island Beach. This is the 40th nest found on Harbor Island this season. Once the bambinos were up we went back to take a look.

The turtle tracks are very noticeable on the beach once you know what to look for. You can see where she made her way from the water up to the dunes. This mama turtle was approximately 3 feet wide by 38 inches long.

The volunteers look for these tracks, and follow them up to the edge of the dunes to find the nest. The turtles dig a deep hole (the length of your arm), and then lay about 100 eggs into the cool sand below. Volunteers put up netting and mark the area so that humans will not disturb the nest, and so that foxes, raccoons, and other predators can’t dig down to eat the eggs.

The nest is marked. Here you can see that this morning’s nest was #40 — the 40th found on Harbor Island this nesting season — and the date is marked too (7/9 marked for today — July 9th). The volunteers who found the nest and took care of it get to mark their initials on the post too (here you see “NL” and “VL” for the names of the volunteers). Once the nest is enclosed this way, everyone knows to be careful of it, and also to be on the look out that approximately 50 days or so from today, these eggs will be hatching. That way we can be sure to stay clear if we see the babies trying to make their way back to the sea.

After the mama lays her eggs, and covers up the nest with sand, she makes her way back to the water. Rarely do people see the mama turtles. But after she’s gone, and the sun comes out, you can see a set of tracks on the beach heading up, and then another set of tracks heading back down.

There are nests on Harbor Island which were found this May. We are hoping that we’ll be able to be here when some of the nests hatch — they expect it to start happening within the next two weeks — and maybe even be able to see some babies make their way to the ocean! We’ll post again if we do!

P.S. This past winter us J-Ms watched a great documentary about sea turtles on Netflix. If you’re interested, we can highly recommend this movie for families and kids of all ages– Turtle: The Incredible Journey.