Sea turtle numbers rebound in South Carolina, set record in Georgia

Sea turtle nesting along South Carolina’s coastline had a good year for increasing numbers of the endangered species but Georgia had a record year.

Michelle Pate, Marine Turtle Conservation Program coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) in Charleston, said to date 5,097 nests have been reported up from 2,096 in 2014. She said this late in the year, it would be rare to have any more nests. The typical nesting season runs from May to August and incubation relies on the heat of the sand over a 45 to 60 day period.

Researchers say sea turtles rebounded from a slump last year to deliver one of the strongest summer nesting seasons on record on beaches from the Carolinas to Florida.

Preliminary numbers from Georgia show scientists and volunteers counted a record 2,292 loggerhead nests during the season that runs from May through August. It’s the fifth season in six years that Georgia has surpassed its previous record.

South Carolina saw the largest increase in sea turtle nesting from 2010 to 2013. “Nesting was down some in 2014 and came back up this year,” Pate said. She noted the sea turtle nesting is cyclical but the increase during the four-year period was promising.

Sea turtle experts in Georgia say the new nesting numbers reinforce their belief that loggerhead sea turtles are making a comeback after 37 years of protection as a federally threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

“Every big year we get, the more confident we are in that conclusion that we’re in a recovery period,” said Mark Dodd, the biologist who heads the sea turtle recovery program for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “So we feel really good about it.”

The most common sea turtle nests monitored along South Carolina’s approximately 187 miles of coastline are loggerheads. However, the more rare green turtles, leatherbacks and even the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley species occasionally nest in the area. Since it takes sea turtles 25 to 30 years to become sexually mature, protection of nests that can hold as many as 120 ping-pong ball sized eggs is critical to the survival of the species.

While most turtles have made their last arduous trek from the sea to bury eggs by mid-August, hatchling numbers will continue to rise through October. Already the state is reporting 232,576 emerged hatchlings, up from 2014’s 129,648 hatchlings.

Pate said, “those are good numbers,” especially because many nests fall prey to predators that include coyotes, raccoons and wild hogs. Because the turtles nest on the beach, there are various human hazards that can also hinder successful nesting, including nighttime beach lighting during the May to October nesting season. Relocation of endangered nests can only be performed by DNR permitted volunteers.

Loggerhead sea turtles grow to weigh up to 300 pounds.

They dig their nests on beaches from the Carolinas to Florida. Preliminary nesting numbers show a strong nesting comeback in North Carolina and South Carolina this summer after numbers dropped by nearly half in 2014. Georgia suffered a similar slump last year, with nest numbers dipping to 1,201.

Pate said she thinks several factors have promoted recent year increases.

“We hope it is due to management protocols put in place coming to fruition,” she said. Those protocols include management techniques such as requiring turtle excluder devices be installed on trawling nets that allow turtles caught up in the fishing nets to escape. Pate also said increased nest protection activities aided by the estimated 1,300 volunteers across the state have attributed to survival numbers among the turtles.

Among those volunteers is Betsy Brabson, project leader of a volunteer team that monitors the beach along Hobcaw Barony and Debordieu in Georgetown County where this year there are 40 nests. She is also among the six members of the North Island Turtle Team, along with husband Bill that accesses North Island -- an 8-miles stretch of beach in the Yawkey Wildlife Preserve -- by boat to monitor the 222 nests located there this year. Those nests include one green sea turtle nest laid on Aug. 19, she said.

Brabson said North Island’s best numbers were in 2012 at 226 nests with 2013 seeing a high for the Hobcaw/Debordieu area at 108 nests.

Considered a “huge nesting area,” North Island lost more than 100 nests this year to predators even with protective mesh and other measures taken to protect the eggs, Brabson said. “It’s tragic but predators have free reign over there and are hard to catch,” she said.

Sea turtle monitoring has increased in Horry and Georgetown counties over the last 30 years following development of SCUTE or South Carolina United Turtle Enthusiasts. Founded in Pawleys Island in 1989, SCUTE is one of about 30 volunteer sea turtle protection projects under the direction of DNR.

Jeff McClary, a SCUTE founder, said while nesting data indicates a good year for the state, numbers from SCUTES’s 55 miles of protection area running from North Myrtle Beach to the North Inlet, are just average with 117 nests compared to a previous 226.

McClary said numbers decrease the farther north you go along the coast so the more southern areas provide a longer nesting season for the turtles producing higher numbers of hatchlings.

Along a 13-mile stretch that includes North Myrtle Beach, Briarcliffe Acres and the area around Apache Pier, a group of about 85 volunteers have been monitoring 18 nests. North Myrtle Beach coordinator Linda Mataya said volunteers who began monitored that area more closely in 2010 finished counting eggs in the last nest there Monday. She said total numbers of hatchlings are not yet available.

Once all the nests have hatched, Mataya and other project groups will turn over their data to Pate, who said South Carolina’s numbers would be finalized by December and reported in the January edition of Loggerheadlines.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published September 10, 2015 at 9:45 AM with the headline "Sea turtle numbers rebound in South Carolina, set record in Georgia."