Turtle Tracks

Every morning while heading out to fish at Hunting Island I'd run into or tag along with the volunteers who walk the beach looking for sea turtle tracks.Loggerhead turtles born on Hunting Island will return to this beach to lay their own eggs. Female Loggerhead turtles begin to drag their huge bodies up onto the beach. This usually occurs at night or in the early morning. Once a female has found her desired nesting spot, she will dig a hole using her back flippers. She will lay about 100 - 160 eggs into the hole and when done, she will cover the hole with sand, again using her back flippers. She then will return to the ocean and will not return until her next nesting season. The huge turtles would make tracks in the packed sand of low tide that I would never leave a track in. In the week I was there I found three sets of tracks where a turtle had hauled out to make a nest, two within a couple hundred yards of our tent. The volunteers then find the nest and stake it out to prevent people from disturbing it and cover the nest with a mesh that lets the baby turtles out but keeps animals from digging out the nest.