Hilton Head Island’s favorite visitors are on their way out. Here’s how their season went
After months of arduous work and endless nurturing, Hilton Head Island’s most beloved visitors are almost on their way out.
Sea turtle season — a six-month stretch where some volunteers give up their early mornings and others their evenings to ensure sea turtle mothers stay on their course and hatchlings have the best chance of survival — officially ends Oct. 31.
As of Thursday afternoon, Amber Kuehn, a marine biologist and director of Hilton Head Island’s Sea Turtle Patrol, said four nests were still on the beach with one expected to hatch. Last week, when Hurricane Ian whipped up storm surge on the island’s beach, there were six nests left and most of them were inundated with water, Kuehn said.
Nonetheless, she called it a good season, noting that Hilton Head Island reported 423 sea turtle nests. All but one laying mama were loggerheads, with a lone green turtle. Yes, 2022 was pretty impressive when it comes to nests laid on Hilton Head, and it’s hot on the heels of 2019, when 463 nests were recorded. Kuehn called it a “good close second.”
Beach success, which is when nests and false crawls (where a mother and doesn’t lay) are compared against each other, came in a little under half for Hilton Head. Kuehn called it pretty typical, however, this year, there were a bit more nests laid than false crawls.
The number this year to focus on is what’s called emergence success. That’s when hatchlings use their tiny flippers to pull themselves out of a nest chamber and reach the beach. This season, Hilton Head had a 76.3% emergence success rate, a number that hasn’t been reported since 2000, Kuehn said.
“We did a good job moving them,” she noted, adding that 241 out of the 423 nests needed relocation. “That’s a lot of work, 120-plus eggs and re-digging a 2 1/2-foot hole to get them out of the way of the water.”
Moving over half the nests was just one heavy-lift to protect and nurture the island’s sea turtles.
The season that kicked off with the first Hilton Head nest laid on May 5 also brought high tides, heavy rains and three rescued sea turtles, including one named Bea. As always, Sea Turtle Patrol volunteers monitored the 14 miles of beach before sunrise for turtle nesting and hatching activity, and Turtle Trackers tirelessly did educational outreach and beach cleanup at sunset.
But the work isn’t done. It never really ends.
“This is when it really gets hard,” said Kuehn, who begins her days at 5 a.m. for the turtles.
Now is the time Sea Turtle Patrol Hilton Head Island, a nonprofit, needs to secure money through fundraisers and grants to ensure they can even more adequately provide for the turtles next year. In their sight is maintaining trucks, money for fuel and supplies, and the potential to find an office so they can move from working from a tent at Islanders parking lot.
The nonprofit will also continue to develop future projects, outreach to schools and training of some businesses. And while it’s months away, in March and April, sea turtle training will be held for members of the public who want to learn and get factual information about sea turtles before the season officially begins May 1.
“We’ll be very busy regardless of the fact that they’re gone,” Kuehn said.
This story was originally published October 10, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
