Dear Nest Adopters,

WOW!  Lots of huge surprises for Hilton Head Island Sea Turtle watchers:

  1. The first sea turtle nesting of the season on Hilton Head Island was REALLY early in the season – yesterday morning, April 26th, a mother sea turtle crawled ashore to dig a hole in the sand and lay her eggs.   This is the earliest nesting in most people’s memory, and is probably due to the warmer than usual weather recently.
  1. The sea turtle was a Kemp’s Ridley – the rarest and one of the most endangered of the sea turtle species!  Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are much smaller than the loggerhead sea turtles which generally nest on Hilton Head. This is the first time a Kemp’s Ridley has nested on Hilton Head Island and only the fourth in South Carolina since record-keeping began.  (Interestingly, another Kemps Ridley beat out ours by laying a nest on Kiawah Island the evening before.)
  1. This sea turtle mama came ashore in broad daylight!  Loggerhead sea turtle mothers generally come ashore to nest during the night, so spotting one on Hilton Head is a rare treat.  The Kemp’s Ridley is a more of a daytime nesting creature, so this event gave lots of our beach-going locals and tourists an amazing show.  There is a video of the action on the Island Packet website.

Now the mother has gone back to the ocean, never to visit her nest again. And her eggs will lie undisturbed in the sand for about 60 days.  Hoping for a successful hatch of our first Kemp’s Ridley!

So we are off to a great start!  Will keep you posted as the season unfolds…..


Andrea B. Siebold

Sea Turtle Nest Adoption Coordinator

Coastal Discovery Museum