2011 Nesting Results

Summer 2011 Update
	Summer 2011 This is the latest news about sea turtle nests on Kiawah Island.
	September 29th - *Late Breaking Island News:* 5:00 p.m. 9/29/11. The Sea Turtle Hospital at the South Carolina Aquarium will be releasing not one but TWO sea turtles on Friday, September 30th. The release will be on the beach at Night Heron Park at 1:00 p.m.. See you on the beach! August 21st - Nesting patrol reports a new total of 254 nests. No new nests now, but some wild nests are hatching and increasing Kiawah's total number of nests. August 14th - Nesting patrol is definitely winding down on Kiawah. As of August 14th, we have a grand total of 252 nests! Hatching patrols are out every morning watching the nests, so if a stray mama lays a nest, it will be marked too. And of course the final nest total will not be known until all the nests have hatched - just in case a sneaky mama turtle laid a nest that the Nesting patrol didn't find. Stay tuned! August 8th - Kiawah now has 250 nests on our beach! That is just six fewer nests than on August 8, 1999. You may remember that 1999 was Kiawah's biggest nesting year ever, with a final total of 296 nests! (262 regular + 34 wild nests). July 31st - Nesting patrol reports a new total of 246 nests as of July 31st. The mamas just keep visiting Kiawah's beach ~ WOW! July 25th - Nesting patrol reports a new total of 239 nests as of July 25th. That is 11 more nests than Kiawah's best year ever! 1999 was Kiawah's banner year, when we had a grand total of 296 nests. Though nesting is slowing, those mama turtles are still arriving on our beach. What will the final total be? Stay tuned... July 17th - 227 nests on Kiawah, which officially beats our most recent record of 225 set in 2003. So we officially have the best nesting year of the century! July 14th - Our fearless Turtle Truck driver this week, Phyllis Cohen, reports TWO MORE nests today, for a total of 224 nests. Way to go mamas! Now we are just 1 nest shy of our 2003 total of 225. WOW! Could our Kiawah mamas be working to beat the BEST NESTING YEAR EVER? Kiawah had a grand total of 296 nests in 1999. (262 located by nesting patrol + 34 wild nests). At least 3 weeks of nesting remain . Can they? Will they? July 13th - Thanks to Phyllis Cohen, the current driver of the "Turtle Truck" for this update: as of July 13th, Kiawah has 222 nests. That is 23 nests MORE (for July 13th) than our recent banner year in 2003. That year we ended up with 225 nests. Will our mamas beat that total this year? Stay tuned! July 12th - 216 nests and counting... July 11th - Kiawah now has 208 nests! Nesting generally runs through the first week of August, so our mamas might just beat the 225 nests from 2003 (the most recent BIG year). GO TURTLES! July 7th - Kiawah has loggerhead hatchlings! Nest #2 hatched last night. Let hatching season begin! July 5th - Kiawah's beach now has 189 nests. July 3rd - Sea turtle nests on Kiawah as of July 3rd: 184. Still about a month left of nesting season, so this could be a banner year! June 29th - Kiawah's beach has 161 nests as of June 29th. Our mamas are still going strong, and we still have at least a month of nesting left. GO TURTLES! June 24th - Kiawah's turtle mamas are still cookin'! Eight nests this morning, bringing our total to 146 nests (as of June 24th). That is 17 nests MORE than 2003 (when Kiawah finished the season with 225 nests). Amazing! June 22nd - Kiawah's beach has 135 nests as of June 22nd. That is 21 more nests than we had on June 22nd in 1999, when we had our largest nesting season EVER! (296 once every nest was counted.) WOW! June 19th - Kiawah's turtle patrollers have been unbelievably busy this past week. As of June 19th there are 120 nests on Kiawah's beach. That is an extraordinary number for this point in the nesting season. Holy cow! (or would that be holy mama turtles?) June 16th - Not one, two, three, or even four nests this morning, but SEVEN! Yeeowzah! That makes 96 nests on Kiawah now. Those were some busy nesting patrollers this morning! June 14th - There are now 84 nests on Kiawah's beach. Amazing! June 13th - As of June 13th, there are 82 nests on Kiawah's beach. Yea! June 9th - Four more loggerhead nests this morning, for a grand total of 72 nests on Kiawah's beach. WOW! June 7th - Kiawah now has 67 loggerhead sea turtle nests! Yea! That's 21 nests in 5 days, for those of you keeping track. Amazing! June 3rd - Six additional loggerhead sea turtle nests Friday! Now Kiawah has 52! WOW! June 2nd - More loggerhead sea turtle nests! There are now 46! WOW! May 29th - another loggerhead sea turtle nest this morning, for a total of 32 now! YEA! You can learn more about Kiawah's turtles by "liking" The Turtle Nest Facebook page. May 27th - Kiawah's beach now has THIRTY nests. Go mama turtles! May 22nd - There are now 15 nests on Kiawah's beach. May 18th - Kiawah's beach now has seven nests. This same time in 2010, there were three... May 10th - Nesting season begins on Kiawah! Nest #1 was laid last night. May 4th - The annual training and t-shirt pick-up session was at 6:30 p.m. at the Sandcastle. Well-dressed turtle patrollers will be wearing light blue t-shirts this year. Return to top...

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Summer 2011 Update

Summer 2011