beachbites
PEOPLE | CULTURE | HAPPENINGS | TRENDS
A Message in the Sand
Turtle Tracks
by SUSAN MILLER
A
ugust 31 marks the official end of sea
turtle nesting season in the state
of North Carolina. By that time,
four nests on Wrightsville Beach
may have hatched.
Throughout the summer months, mother sea
turtles crawl ashore under the cover of darkness
to leave their precious cargo in the dunes.
A nesting sea turtle will dig a chamber in the
sand using her flippers, lay approximately 100
ping pong ball-sized eggs inside, then carefully
conceal the eggs before making her nocturnal trek
back to sea. Mother sea turtles often do such a good job of camouflaging
their nests that the best indication one has of a nest’s location is actually
the telltale tracks that the turtle leaves behind.
These tracks found near Shell Island resort on the morning of
May 28 were made by a nesting female loggerhead sea turtle. The
tracks measured 36 inches across, indicating that she likely weighed
approximately 250 pounds. The loggerhead’s tracks tell us the tale of
her journey to lay her nest: She circled around
the bottom of a dune, entered the endangered
sea bird nesting colony grounds, crawled to the
top of the steep 12-foot dune, then slid down
the other side before returning to the ocean.
Amazingly, the mother loggerhead managed
to dig her nest chamber without disturbing any
of the nearby birds’ nests, some of which were
mere inches away.
Nancy Fahey, project coordinator of the
Wrightsville Beach Sea Turtle Project, describes
this adventurous marine reptile’s trek as “a roller
A just hatched loggerhead sea turtle
makes its way from the nest to the sea.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLISON POTTER
coaster ride, turtle style,” and her vertical drop on the backside of the
dune as a leap of faith.
Once Fahey and other WBSTP volunteers located the nest, they
discovered that it held 159 loggerhead eggs. The eggs, which have
a leathery shell rather than a hard one, were carefully relocated to
another nearby area to preserve the safety of the soon-to-be turtle
hatchlings and nearby least tern chicks.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY HROMIAK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY HROMIAK
From left: Because of its large size, the path of an adult loggerhead is sometimes mistaken for tire tracks. The 36-inch tracks were discovered at
dawn on the north end on May 28. The tracks led WBSTP volunteers to the nest’s location on the back side of a dune near Shell Island Resort.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY HROMIAK
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