We were greeted by a beautiful, serene view of Dunn Sound on the causeway, then overcast skies and a new crop of sargassum spread across the wide beach.
No turtle activity was detected on the lower end of the island. As the volunteers who walked towards the jetties approached the upper end of the island, they found a crawl left by a big momma. Her crawl width was 40”!!! She crawled 2/3 of the way up the dune, encountered vegetation, and headed back to the ocean crossing over her incoming crawl.
The equal length of her crawl tracks and the lack of thrown sand led us to believe she may not have nested. Nevertheless, I probed in several areas and dug shoulder deep in a few places where the probe went down easily. Unfortunately, no egg chamber was found. Consequently, this was logged as a non-nesting aka false crawl.
Text and photos by Kathy G.
All sea turtle monitoring by Waties Island Sea Turtle Patrol is permitted an authorized by SCDNR under permit MTP500.
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