Our volunteers stayed very busy the last few weeks. We had many nests hatch and continued to experience severe hatchling disorientation. We have conducted many excavations and in most cases have found good hatch success rate. Most recently we were impacted by storms and heavy rains that washed over (or washed out) a couple nests. We also had 2 nests that suffered the effects of extreme and rapid rainfall resulting in some deceased hatchlings being found during excavation. While that is difficult to witness, there is nothing we could have done differently and sea turtles have evolved to lay multiple nests in a season with the expectation that not all eggs will make it.
Over the next month our volunteers will continue to monitor a few viable nests that remain on the beach but the rapid hatching and excavations are behind us for our 2022 season. Stay tuned to see how we finish out the season and if we’ll break the 3K hatchling mark!
Photos:
Excavation process with many hatched eggs, depression with tracks from 2 green hatchlings, a hatched and unhatched egg with a nest chamber in the background.
