Shirts are now available at The Lighthouse Gifts Inc. on the Holden Beach causeway, at Turtle Talk and Turtle Time this summer and by mail - order shirts and other merchandise; shop here
Found a mother turtle laying a nest? A stranded or injured sea turtle and/or unattended hatchlings?
Call the HBTWP Stranding Team:
910-754-0766 | 24/7/365
Nesting turtles are frightened by lights and won't lay their eggs on a brightly lighted beach. Hatchlings will go to the lights rather than the ocean! Please help us preserve our marine life by keeping beachfront lighting off from May 1st until October 31st. learn more turtle facts
As recommended by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, it is the policy of the HBTWP to NOT disclose the locations or potential hatch dates of active turtle nests on our beach.
A list of nest locations will NOT be published in newspapers, on this website or on other social media. Please do NOT call the emergency number or contact the Project Coordinator to ask about nests. This is for the safety of the turtles! learn more about turtle nesting
Current Nest Count |
False Crawls |
7 |
6 |
Total Known Eggs |
Hatchlings to Ocean |
276 |
0 |
posted: May 30, 2025, 10:42 AM
Our sea turtle nesting season is well underway now. We have had 4 loggerhead sea turtle nests and two false crawls on Holden Beach so far. We haven't had any new nests for two days but we are geared up and ready for a busy season. While there is a lull in the action, we would like to introduce you to the Holden Beach Turtle Watch Program Board of Directors. Barb Taylor (Secretary), Deva Tucker (Director at Large), John Cifelli (President), Laura Hager (Treasurer), and Pat Cusack (Program Coordinator and Permit Holder). The HBTWP, founded in 1989, monitors and protects...read more of this article.
posted: May 22, 2025, 2:10 PM
After two False Crawls earlier in May and all the barrier islands around us already reporting nests, the Holden Beach Turtle Patrol FINALLY found TWO Loggerhead sea turtle nests on Thursday May 22. We marked the nests and expect to see hatchlings from these nests in mid to late July. Last year our first nest was May 18. Our most frequent first nest date (4 times) is May 20, and our earliest date is May 8 when a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle laid a nest here. The first nest of this 2025 sea turtle nesting season in North Carolina was...read more of this article.
posted: May 13, 2025, 4:48 PM
Our early morning riders have been out patrolling all 8 miles of the Holden Beach waterfront...looking for evidence of a mother turtle. We've had two "false crawls" so far. This means the mother turtles have come ashore, but for some reason they did not dig a nest. They went back into the water without laying eggs. Teams went out those mornings and dug looking for eggs and couldn't find any. In 60 days we'll keep an eye on these areas to see if she really did lay eggs and did such a good job of hiding the eggs we couldn't...read more of this article.
posted: May 6, 2025, 12:06 PM
The HBTP has an endowment with UNCW that honors our founder Judith Bryan. This endowment assists graduate students at UNCW majoring in Marine Biology. This year's fellowship recipients are Jamie Clark and Caroline VanDuzer. They both are studying sea turtles and will be working with us this summer. Congratulations! Photo shows (L-R) Pat Cusack (Project Coordinator), Jamie Clark & Caroline VanDuzer (Fellowship Recipients), and John Cifelli (Board President), at the recent HBTWP annual meeting...read more of this article.