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2022 Hilton Head Sea Turtle Report – A Very Good Year!
We are now at the end of the 2022 Sea Turtle season, and it was a good one. While we didn’t top 2019, we came close – 2022 ended up being the third-best year for nests and the second-best year for hatchlings in the past 15 years! Each year the tremendously dedicated folks at seaturtle.org compile data from our very own Hilton Head Island turtle volunteers and make it available for everyone to see. We take the data, analyze it, and put it in easy-to-read graph form. In 2022 we had around 400 Loggerhead turtles nest on the island, many in Palmetto Dunes. We also had one Green turtle nest…
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14 Years of Turtle Nests on Hilton Head Island
If you have been lucky enough to be on the beach at Hilton Head Island during the summer, you have probably seen the flagged sea turtle nests. If you have been very lucky, you have even seen a turtle heading back into the ocean after a hard night of egg-laying. And if you have been extremely lucky, you have had the opportunity to see baby turtles scurrying toward the water. Each year, turtles make their way to Hilton Head Island to lay their eggs. We have been tracking the counts using data from the wonderful folks at www.seaturtle.org, and are very happy to say that it looks like the number…
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2021 Turtles are Hatching
Right on schedule, the 2021 baby turtles are making their way from Hilton Head beaches back into the surf. An estimated total of 79 new Loggerheads have hatched and made it to the ocean. That number will increase significantly over the next few months, probably ending up close to 20,000. Unfortunately, it appears that 2021 will be a slightly below average year for nests on HHI. Over the past ten years, an average of 309 Loggerhead turtles have made nests on our beaches each summer, producing an average of 21,000 Loggerhead babies. As of July 21 we have seen 244 new nests, and while already above the 2018 total of…
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Turtles are Hatching
Just on time, turtles on Hilton Head are coming out of their shells and heading to the ocean! The first Loggerhead sea turtle babies were recorded on July 16th scurrying from two of the nests on Hilton Head. The nesting is over, the hatching has begun. Turtles will continue to hatch through about the end of October, but the next month or so are the best window to see them in person. Click HERE to see a video of baby turtles that appeared in the Island Packet. 2019 was a record year for turtle nests, with 464 nests (resulting in about 33,000 hatchlings), but this year hasn’t been too bad. …
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2019 Already Record Year for Sea Turtles
As we reach the end of July there is about one month left in the 2019 nest laying season (turtles will hatch until about the end of October) and the numbers are amazing. With 443 nests as of July 29 we have already passed the annual record of 411 set in 2016. Over the past ten years, there have been an average of 269 nests per year, with the lowest point during that time being 131 nests located in 2014: Scientists believe that Sea Turtles usually return to the same beach to nest as where they were hatched, which means we should have even higher numbers over the next decades…
Hilton Head Beach Front Property
