SI sea turtle loggerhead island eye news
As Hurricane Idalia approached South Carolina, the Island Turtle Team, just like other nest-protection groups, became anxious about nests that were laid in mid-July through the beginning of August that were still on the beach. We remember 2011, when Hurricane Irene came in on Aug. 26 and destroyed nine nests on the Isle of Palms, mostly between 31st and 37th avenues, and two nests on Sullivan’s Island at Station 20. These dunes washed away even though Irene did not cause much damage or severe weather in our area. By Aug. 30 of this season, there were still 10 unhatched nests and one hatched but uninventoried nest left on the Isle of Palms as well as two unhatched on Sullivan’s.
Based on the major storm response guidelines from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, which we are required to follow under our nesting permit, we are not allowed to inventory any hatched nests in advance of an approaching storm before the required 72-hour waiting period because hatchlings may need those three extra days to mature. By digging the nest up early and releasing any stragglers, we could be causing their deaths and skewing the nest data we report. Those guidelines also say “storms have an impact on sea turtles, but they have adapted their nesting strategy to accommodate for natural events such as hurricanes. Each nesting female turtle deposits several nests throughout the duration of nesting season – essentially hedging her bets to make sure that even if a storm hits at some point during the nesting season, there is still a high probability that at least a few of her nests will incubate successfully without being impacted by a storm. No storm season is a total loss for sea turtle nests.”
They do suggest that we put extra marking sticks a certain distance behind each remaining nest, in a straight line to the ocean. This way, after the storm, we may be able to pinpoint the location of any nests that washed away. We always do this 10 feet landward of the nests. But with Irene, even some of those extra sticks – and the nests as well – were missing due to severe erosion.
As before, we are indebted to John Garrels, owner of Chunky’s Chairs & Umbrellas on the Isle of Palms, who always lends us a drill and large auger for setting those 4-foot tall marking sticks behind every nest on both islands. And each nest already has a very accurate GPS location in the data we have recorded throughout the season.
After a hurricane, people sometimes find turtle eggs that have been washing around in the surf. These are not viable after that has happened, but we bury them in the dunes. We also try to recover any nest signs and other sticks that wash up for reuse.
The morning after Idalia passed us, we found that hatchlings left three IOP nests during the storm. Two were washed over by the tide but not damaged. And we were surprised that only four of them had to have the broken orange tape repaired. There was no erosion on the dunes where they had been relocated. However, on Sullivan’s Island, the sign and backup sticks for one of the two remaining nests washed down. We had to use GPS to find where it had been, and we marked it with the sign, which was still on the beach. We are not sure if the water covered the nest long enough to kill its contents, which were due to hatch soon.