Christel Cothran
A tiny loggerhead coming out of nest #12 at dawn begins a long, solitary journey across the ocean.
Each tiny loggerhead sea turtle begins its life when it uses a sharp “eye tooth” to cut its way out of the soft leathery egg that has incubated for around two months, buried about 20 inches down in the warm sand on the beach. After several days, this little turtle and more than 100 of its siblings dig their way up toward the surface.
When their little shells have straightened out and they are just under the sand, they wait until they sense the temperature has cooled – a signal that night has come, and the beach is dark and free of most predators.
As if someone has thrown an “on” switch, they suddenly become very active, boiling out of the nest together and racing downhill toward the ocean. At this stage, they look for the brightest light they can see and instinctively run toward it.
If they are lucky, they see the moon or starlight and the white waves of the surf. If other lights are visible, that’s the way they go. Their main beach predator is the ghost crab, which may grab a few as they scramble to the water.
When they reach the surf, they know to swim against the waves, beginning a years-long solitary journey. Once they are farther out, they can navigate the Earth’s magnetic field with tiny crystals in their brains. During the three-day “swimming frenzy,” they are able to swim continuously until they reach the Gulf Stream because they are nourished by the yolk sac remnants in their bodies and don’t need to find food.
If they make it to the Gulf Stream, they can rest in the huge floating beds of sargassum weed, where they find shelter and many small creatures to eat. We are told that most of them do not survive the dangerous first 24 hours of life, but, because so many eggs are laid, the population, formerly in decline, is making a slow recovery.
The next life stage of a young loggerhead is floating in the Atlantic gyre, a circular current that carries them near Europe and finally back to the North American coast, where they arrive as teenagers to forage and grow to adult size. It takes 25 or 30 years for them to reach maturity, which is when the females begin to nest on the beach.
The Island Turtle Team has found and protected 47 nests on the Isle of Palms and 11 on Sullivan’s Island this summer. Of these 58 nests, 30 have produced hatchlings. The combined incubation duration is now at 59.3 days, and the average hatch success is at 85.6%.
We are no longer getting any new nests but are busy doing inventories of hatched ones to add to the database of information at Seaturtle.org, something more 30 other groups like ours are doing to further the cause of sea turtle conservation.