surf & Sand: Lowcountry beaches

Turtles doing well this year

By Prentiss Findlay

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Provided by Barbara Bergwerf

Mary Alice Monroe, Island Turtle Team member, poses with a loggerhead nesting on Isle of Palms in late June.

Nest numbers could double estimates made last year.

Loggerhead sea turtle nests are appearingon South Carolina beaches this breeding season, and experts are cautiously predicting a “monumental” year for the reptiles.

For May, the most recent month for which figures are available, scientists estimated the state beaches held 520 loggerhead nests, triple the number estimated in previous years. If the trend continues, the estimate could climb to about 5,000 nests by the end of the loggerhead reproductive season in October. That would nearly double last year’s nest estimates, said Dubose Griffin, state sea turtle program coordinator.

“We’re having a big year,” Griffin said.

Turtles typically nest from early May to mid-August, and the eggs hatch two months later. “You’ll have some years where you’ll go gangbusters in the beginning. It could bottom out in the second half of the season,” Griffin said.

In recent years, loggerhead nests in South Carolina have been dropping 3 percent annually. Nesting is affected by water temperature, availability of food and the reproductive cycle. “Everything they do centers around temperature,” Griffin said.

Loggerhead females dig nests where they lay eggs and cover them with sand. They nest every two to three years, and they lay three to five nests that contain up to 150 eggs each. Loggerheads are listed as a threatened species, but some environmental groups have been campaigning lately to change their status to endangered.

On June 2, the volunteer Island Turtle Team found a loggerhead nest with 148 eggs near 57th Avenue on Isle of Palms. The team moved the nest to 32nd Avenue so it would not be affected by the $10 million Wild Dunes beach nourishment project, which extends from 53rd Avenue to Dewees Inlet, said Mary Pringle, the team project leader.

The Island Turtle Team monitors Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms. “It’s a good season,” Pringle said. “We have 13 nests now and are anticipating probably 40-something for the year, which is better than the past few years when our numbers were in the 20s,” she said. Most of the nests were found on Isle of Palms. On Sullivan’s Island, a nest of 86 eggs was found near Station 28 and moved to a suitable dune above the tideline, she said.

The beach nourishment project, which was about half-finished in late June, will pump 885,000 cubic yards of sand onto 13,785 linear feet of beach. A few loggerhead females looking for nesting grounds had explored the area where beach renourishment was under way near the gated Wild Dunes community but have been spooked by lights and people, Pringle said. The beach nourishment project can harm existing nests if they are in its path. But in the long run, the project should help loggerheads because nests in eroded areas at Wild Dunes can be claimed by high tides. “The nourishment will actually make it a viable nesting area,” Griffin said.

The equipment used to suck up sand offshore for beach renourishment recently inhaled a 128-pound, iron cannonball that experts said likely was from the Civil War. Turtles, however, are not at risk of being sucked into the offshore pipe because it is buried in the sand and has a guard over it, Pringle said she has been told.

The beach renourishment project began in May and must be finished by the end of July, a condition of state and federal permits, to protect the loggerhead turtle.

The state Department of Natural Resources reports that nine turtle nests were found at Folly Beach in May. At Kiawah Island, 33 nests were discovered and at Seabrook Island, there were eight nests. Cape Island had 124 nests in May, the highest in the state. Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and Huntington Beach State Park had no reported nests.

surf & Sand: Lowcountry beaches

Turtles doing well this year

Nest numbers could double estimates made last year.

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