Busy time on the beach

posted: August 26, 2024, 1:34 PM

Special shout out to one of our long-time volunteers for being our statistics person all summer. She updated the statistics on this webpage every day! That's not an easy task. Especially now when we have many nests on the beach, and they are hatching almost every evening. The numbers of nests are changing, and the numbers of hatchlings into the ocean change every day.

The last momma seen on our beach was on July 26. We counted two weeks and declared the "nesting" season over for this year. That doesn't mean turtle season is over! This this was nest #62 for the season and it should hatch in late September.

We had three new nests since then bringing our total to 65 for the season. You may wonder how we can get new nests without another mother turtle on the beach. These were "false crawls" that turned into nests. Back when the mother laid these nests, she did such a good job of covering them up, our morning teams couldn't find the eggs. But we really thought she laid a nest...so we watched that area and YES there were nests. False crawl #17 = Nest 63, FC 23 = nest 64 and FC 25 = nest 65. There are still about 20 nests that will hatch within the next month. Teams are on the beach every evening. Stop by to visit.

These photos are of nest #40 who closed last night. They found one live hatchling and 90 cracked open eggs. This nest boiled unassisted and unwitnessed on day #51.

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