After a partial emergence of 58 Kemp’s Ridley hatchlings at Caswell Beach’s Sea Turtle Nest #9 on Wednesday morning, a nice crowd of visitors were able to observe 4 more emerge this morning. The 4 were spread out over 3 hours time! Kemp’s Ridley are the most endangered of our sea turtle species, are commonly early daytime hatchers, and known for being slow to emerge.
After watching the last hatchling stopped in the hole for over an hour and the sun beginning to get very hot, we consulted with our State Coordinator as to a best plan of action. A permitted volunteer was given authorization to intervene and found him to be held in place by a root under the sand. He was removed from the hole and placed at the top of the runway for his journey to the water. This is an example of why it is important that we are called when there is any activity at a nest. This poor guy would have perished in the heat without help! Volunteers shaded him with beach towels until he made it to the wet sand. He moved a lot faster then and hit the water swimming! Thank you to the wonderful group of excited and concerned visitors! Keep reading below there’s lots more to see about today!
We now have 56 nests. All were laid in safe locations and did not need relocating. Nest #56’s Mama took a crazy path back to the water. She crawled west from the nest, did a few loop-de-loops along the way and finally turned back south to the ocean. Guess she wanted the scenic route!
Nest #3 was inventoried and had great results. 31 hatchlings were seen at first emergence and several tracks were seen in the runway over the next few days. 50+ hatchlings had emerged without a trace of evidence! The results are: Hatched Egg Shells-88, Unhatched Eggs-11, Live Hatchlings at excavation-5 and 1 dead from a ghost crab.
**This conservation work for protected sea turtles on Caswell Beach is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission (ES Permit 24ST03).
Want to help? Please consider donating to our efforts to protect sea turtles at Caswell Beach Turtle Watch Donations.
Criticially Endangered Kemp’s Ridley Hatchlings
New Nests and a Crazy Crawl!
