Loggerhead sea turtles laid a record 4,292 nests on Georgia beaches this year, a hard-won rebound from a low of 358 nests in 2004.
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turtles → lay → 2004
Loggerhead moms do the bulk of the work here, of course.
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moms → do → course
But they get oversight and protection from a team of hundreds of volunteers and professionals who fan out on beaches from Cumberland to Tybee nearly every day from May through August.
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who → get → August
The effort is even more intense on Wassaw Island where rotating groups of ecotourists stay up all night to document the turtles that nest at this national wildlife refuge.
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that → rotate → refuge
A crew from The Current GA set out to document this labor of love, spending the night on Wassaw, babysitting Tybee nests that stubbornly resisted hatching, and walking the Tybee beach at sunrise.
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that → set → sunrise
Dawn patrol
Job number one is find the nests at dawn after turtles have laid them overnight.
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turtles → find → them
Alli Caldwell, programs director at the Tybee Island Marine Science Center, patrols the beach frequently.
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Caldwell → patrol → beach
The science center oversees the Tybee Island Sea Turtle Project, which like all the Georgia sea turtle monitoring, is run under the direction of the Department of Natural Resources’ loggerhead guru Mark Dodd.
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which → oversee → guru
On July 2, Caldwell surveyed the southern half of Tybee beach, setting off before dawn and scanning the sand for the telltale sign that a loggerhead mama had lugged itself up the beach to lay its eggs and then returned to the sea: a looping track that resembles a single heavily treaded tire.
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that → survey → tire
It was the height of the summer season and by 6:30 a.m. a couple dozen tourists lounged on the beach near the pier.
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tourists → lounge → pier
Still no tracks in sight, Caldwell doublechecked an already recorded nest marked by caution tape, a printed sign and screening atop the sand to discourage predators and overly curious beachgoers.
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Caldwell → doublechecke → predators
She noted ghost crab tracks on several nests and a hole from a ghost crab at one, but no serious predation.
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She → note → one
With 41 nests recorded by July 2, Tybee had already shattered its previous record of 35 nests set four years ago.
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Tybee → record → nests
The loggerheads were so prolific that the science center had to order more nest-marking supplies, ending the season with 59 sea turtle nests.
And beachgoers are more informed than ever.
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beachgoers → have → nests
On Tybee, one young woman noted Caldwell’s sea turtle volunteer shirt and congratulated her on the record number of nests.
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woman → note → nests
As Caldwell scouted the southern end of Tybee, Science Center board member Tim Mescon and his wife Lauren scoured the northern half of the island this day, also on foot, leaving no part of the 5-mile beach unscrutinized.
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Mescon → scout → beach
Loggerheads take a long time to grow up, only beginning to nest when they’re about 25-30 years old.
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they → take → time
So the turtles nesting this year owe their existence to protections begun before the turn of the century.
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turtles → nest → century
That includes the introduction of turtle excluder devices that prevent turtles from drowning in shrimp nets as well as this extensive beach monitoring, a program in place coastwide since 1989.
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that → include → 1989
On Wassaw Island, the action begins after sunset, when sea turtles nest.
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turtles → begin → sunset
Savannah-based Caretta Research Project recruits volunteers, each of whom pays to stay at the island’s rustic cabin for a week of working the night shift.
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each → base → shift
“It’s stifling heat, vicious bugs, and the humidity is awful,” sums up Caretta’s project director Kris Williams Carroll.
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director → stifle → heat
“There’s no privacy, but the turtles are awesome.”
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turtles → ’ → ?
The project, named for the loggerhead’s Latin designation, Caretta caretta, is the longest continuously running saturation tagging program in the U.S.
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project → name → U.S.
It’s in its 54th year.
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It → ’ → year
At about 8 p.m. on a sweltering night in July, Carroll hopped in her Kawasaki mule to scour the beach for nesting turtles.
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Carroll → hop → turtles
She sent her deputies and volunteers in the other direction, all the better to cover the island’s seven miles of pristine beach.
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She → send → beach
Carroll headed first to a nest that hatched three days prior, the first hatch of the season.
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that → head → season
It’s a process repeated up and down the coast for every nest that emerges.
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that → ’ → nest
“Oh my gosh, they were right up on top,” Carroll said as she removed the screening and brushed away sand to reveal three wriggling hatchlings that failed to emerge with their siblings.
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that → say → siblings
Setting the stragglers aside temporarily, Carroll counted the unhatched eggs, eggshells and live hatchlings to determine nest success.
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Carroll → set → success
She also snipped off a sliver of tissue from the front flipper of several dead hatchlings for genetic testing at the University of Georgia.
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She → snip → Georgia
Research scientist Brian Shamblin’s lab there has been testing loggerhead eggs for maternal DNA since the mid-2000s and has created a robust database of the adult female loggerhead population.
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lab → test → population
Now he’s begun tracking males, too, using both DNA from the dead hatchlings as well as DNA from one egg from each nest.
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he → begin → nest
Like the dawn patrollers, Carroll looks for tracks, but because it’s nighttime she’s also watching for female sea turtles making their way across the beach.
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she → look → beach
Less than an hour into patrols, one team spots a meterlong loggerhead digging her nest at the southern tip of the island.
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team → spot → island
The turtle has wedged against a foot-high cliff of sand.
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turtle → wedge → sand
She digs alternating left and right back flipper throwing sand outwards as she does.
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she → dig → sand
Laying eggs puts her in a trancelike state.
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Laying → lay → state
Caretta’s lead biologist Jadyn Sethna removes one egg, still slick with mucus, for genetic testing.
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biologist → remove → testing
…and 33 more, not listed.
The Aporia
