Hundreds of sea turtle nests expected this season on Hilton Head

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WSAV) — If you take a stroll across the beach, you’ll notice some orange signs with some sticks creating a border. Just below the sand, hundreds of baby sea turtles are waiting to hatch. However, there’s one thing to remember, it’s okay to look, but don’t disturb the nests.

Around 300 loggerheads will surf the waves onto Hilton Head Island beaches, looking for the best spot to dig deep and make a home for their little hatchlings.

“We are just counting and marking nests and hoping that people will see this particular sign here and leave that nest undisturbed,” said Amber Kuehn, Sea Turtle Patrol HHI Manager.

However, so far, it’s been a slow start. Two weeks into the season, Sea Turtle Patrol HHI has tallied nine nests. Every day early in the morning, volunteers hit the beaches scanning for crawl marks that the 400-pound loggerheads leave behind.

“In every nest there’s about 120 eggs. Our success rate is anywhere between 70 and 75% emergent success,” Kuehn said. “Our job is to get them safely from here to there.”

Nearly two dozen volunteers make up the Sea Turtle Patrol HHI. In order to protect the island’s sea turtles, she said it takes a lot of fundraising and support from the community.

“We have nest dedications where you can get a nest number assigned and we will tell you the results of that nest through the season,” Kuehn said. “And a certificate comes in the mail and it’s just the perfect thing to help us in our mission.”

However, to make sure these ancient creatures live on, it’s up to beachgoers to help out too. After you’ve spent the day on the shore, make sure you leave with everything you came with, leaving nothing in the turtle’s way that might make them want to turn back.

“Your tent, your towel, your chairs on the beach at night, holes left unfilled might scare them in the middle of the night,” Kuehn said. “They don’t see very well on land, but also in the dark. It makes it more difficult. So if they encounter something, it frightens them. They turn around and they don’t nest.”

Sometime in the fall, when the hatchlings are ready, they start their trip from Hilton Head Island all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Our loggerheads make an incredible journey,” Kuehn said. “They go to the Gulf Stream, they get into that current and they cross the Atlantic on the North Atlantic gyre. And they end up in the Canary Islands in the Azores.”

Nesting season runs from now until July. That’s when hatching season picks up, and for the next few months, thousands of baby sea turtles will make their journey into the ocean.