Hilton Head Sea Turtle Patrol announced 350 nests Saturday, up from the last two years
Hilton Head Island Sea Turtle Patrol announced Saturday it has marked 350 sea turtle nests and an estimated 14 hatchlings on the island as the season, which runs from May until October, reaches its halfway point.
The number of nests this year was up from the last two years, which saw 291 in 2020 and 283 in 2021, according to previous Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reporting. All but one nest in 2021 were loggerhead nests. The standalone was a green turtle nest, a rarity in South Carolina.
In 2022, there has been at least one more discovery of a possible green turtle nest that was found while members of NBC’s the ‘Today’ show were visiting the island for a segment in May. At that time, members of Hilton Head Island Sea Turtle Patrol, a volunteer turtle monitoring group, announced there had only been five other nests found on the island in three decades.
This year, there are an estimated 23,874 eggs to date, according to an online nest monitoring system. By the end of the 2021 season, there were 32,868 estimated eggs, 23,017 of which had hatched. The state data show there have been 256 false crawls this year, when a mother sea turtle returns to the water without laying her eggs. This number is up from 180 in 2021 and 152 in 2020. This can happen when turtles run into obstacles on the beach such as holes or sandcastles, Amber Kuehn, a director with the Sea Turtle Patrol, previously told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
The first turtle of the 2022 season was reportedly found on Sea Pines Beach by the island’s Sea Turtle Patrol just five days after the official start of the season on May 1.
