Artificial lighting can have negative impacts on all nocturnal wildlife, including sea turtles.  Both the nesting females and the hatchlings can be affected by improper artificial lighting.  Nesting females will not nest in brightly lit areas and hatchlings can easily get mis- or dis-oriented (LEFT).  What can you do?  Glad you asked!  Believe it or not, there are ways to have lights where you need them AND be turtle-friendly…all at the same time!

We are happy to say that Jekyll Island amended its Beach Lighting Ordinance in 2008, which requires all properties along the beach, and in view of the beach, to become turtle-friendly with their lights.  How do you do this?  What are turtle friendly lights? Can you still have some lights?  Which ones?

These questions and more will be answered at the upcoming ‘SEA TURTLES AND LIGHTS‘ workshop, hosted by the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and Jekyll Island Authority.

While there are many problems with lights all along Georgia’s coastline, this workshop will concentrate on Jekyll Island specifically, including the Jekyll Island Authority staff,  Jekyll Island residents, hotels and businesses.  We will have presentations by sea turtle experts,  some lighting vendors with examples of turtle-friendly approved (FWC & FWS) fixtures, bulbs and/or shields, and lots of take-home information so YOU can make your lights turtle-friendly!

We hope to get everyone compliant with the lighting ordinance before sea turtle nesting season begins on May 1. Please see the flyer above for workshop information.   CLICK HERE for a PDF version of the flyer.

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette
Marine Field Programs Coordinator

• Loggerhead : total nests = 71; total false crawls (Non-nesting emergences) = 140
• Leatherback total nests = 2; total false crawls = 0
• Total Emergences (Nests + False Crawls) = 213
• Completely depredated by a raccoon = 2 nests

Here is the most recent update for the Jekyll Island’s 2009 Sea Turtle Nesting Season:

We have reached the end of the 2009 sea turtle nesting season on Jekyll Island.  It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen a female, so we will be concluding our night patrol after this weekend.  But have no fear, you’ll still see us in the mornings on the beach conducting our dawn patrol and nest monitoring procedures!  Don’t forget to keep up the Turtle-Friendly habits as hatching season is just getting into full swing and can last through October!
Thanks to the 2009 Sea Turtle Patrol Interns and Volunteers who worked countless hours, at night and in the mornings, for the past 4 months to make this nesting/tagging season another great success!  I’ll share some overall results soon, so keep any eye on our BLOG and website!!!

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette
Marine Field Programs Coordinator

Here’s the latest update on the sea turtle nests and false crawls on Jekyll Island, GA:

In other, related news….HATCHING SEASON HAS BEGUN! While it is still just beginning and rather slow, we are expecting it to pick up soon!  So, we have decided to start our Hatchling Walk Program!  Please visit our website: www.georgiaseaturtlecenter.org for more information and schedule.  Call 912-635-4444 for reservations (space is limited!).

Please remember and follow the turtle-friendly tips we’ve listed on previous BLOG postings and on our website..lighting is especially important in regards to the hatchlings, so leave those flashlights at home!

With hatching season upon us, we have some additional guidelines we’d like everyone to follow:

-If you see a nest hatching, please remain at least 20 feet away from it.  The research team (i.e. Turtle Patrol) needs to count these tracks and record other various, valuable data from these nests in the mornings.  Walking on the hatchling tracks impedes this process and documentation.  You also run the risk of stepping on a hatchling!

-NEVER pick up a hatchling and/or ‘help it to the ocean’.  Hatchlings gather very important information during their journey from the nest to the water.  They also build up muscle strength during this time and a determination to fight for survival-all very important skills needed to improve their chances at making it to adulthood and coming back to nest on Jekyll!

-If you see a hatchling near the water, flipped upside down, please resist the temptation to flip it back over.  At this stage, their flippers are a little too big for them with, together with their ‘rubbery’ shells (not yet completely hardened), they can actually flip themselves over quite nicely! And again, this is important to their survival skills.

-To reports a disoriented hatchling (i.e. in the dunes, cross-overs, parking lots or street) or a ‘wash-back’ hatchling (one that has been washed back onto shore and appears too week to fight the surf), please call the GSTC at 912-635-4444 with as much information about the hatchling and it’s location as possible.

-Remember, hatchlings are easily negatively impacted by artificial lighting.  Never take flash photos of them at night, shine a flashlight or any other type of light at them.

Thank you all for your cooperation in assuring all of our turtle mothers and hatchlings have the best chance of survival on Jekyll Island!

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette
Marine Field Programs Coordinator

Hello again!

If you do not remember me, my name is Amanda.  I am one of the six 2009 patrol interns, and I have a short story to tell you.

Once upon a time, there was a female loggerhead sea turtle that nested near the Jekyll Island Club Hotel’s Beach Pavilion (otherwise known as Edy’s ice cream bar) on Jekyll Island.  She was a beautiful adult of 30-35 years, who had a plethora of epibiota on her carapace.  The life on her shell included things like tunicates, barnacles, bryozoans, bioluminescing plankton, and more!

The three on-duty patrol interns, John, Ashley, and Amanda, were amazed by the loveliness of this particular turtle (whom they appropriately named, “Turtle”).  They admired her as she crawled from the ocean to the dunes, body pitted, and dug her upside-down light bulb shaped egg chamber.

While Turtle was laying her eggs, the patrol interns turned on their red headlamps and got to work.  They noted the time and location of Turtle’s emergence.  They measured the length and width of her carapace.  They scanned her shoulders for a microchip PIT tag and looked carefully at her front flippers to see if they were pierced with metal tags.

Luckily for the excited interns, this Turtle was tagged.  She was a returning nester from earlier in the summer!

The interns discussed the previous emergence (EM29) of Turtle (EM90) while they waited for her to drop all of her clutch and cover her nest.  It seemed that Turtle had visited Jekyll Island once before that summer, but she had not nested.  John, Ashley, and Amanda reviewed their saturation tagging data sheet and found that Turtle had been tagged by them on her last emergence.  This made the interns very happy; they had inserted her tags correctly the first time around!

When Turtle was finished laying, she covered her nest with her dexterous hind flippers.  Then, she used her front flippers to camouflage her nest.  She wouldn’t want any predators (such as raccoons) to easily find her precious eggs, now would she?

Turtle left the happy interns some time after 3:15 am.  The interns had to move on before Turtle left her body pit.  However, before they did, Amanda wrote a sand note to early-rising beach combers.  It read:

“Please, do not walk on turtle crawl :)”

Ironically, Turtle crawled right over Amanda’s note!  Did she plan it?

I hope you enjoyed my story! Until next time….

Sincerely,
Amanda Noble
Sea Turtle Patrol Intern

Here’s your update on Sea Turtle Nesting numbers for Jekyll Island as of 7/6/09:

Check out the new nesting database on www.seaturtle.org for updated nesting information on all of Georgia’s islands including Jekyll!

We are currently in the peak of nesting season and approaching hatching seas, so please remember to review and follow the ‘tips to being sea turtle friendly’, which you can find in previous BLOGs and on our website!

Happy Turtling!

Stefanie Ouellette
Marine Field Programs Coordinator

We have 1 more Sea Turtle Patrol Intern to welcome to our family and introduce you to….Erin Dougherty!

I have a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Clemson University and a M.S. in Biology from Florida Atlantic University. I have been interested in turtles as long as I can remember, and I have been fortunate enough to work with them for several years. I assisted with research projects involving freshwater turtles as an undergraduate, and I participated in Mote Marine Laboratorys Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Internship in the summer of 2006. In graduate school, I studied swimming stability in green and loggerhead sea turtles. I also volunteered at the Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach and had the opportunity to encounter leatherbacks while living in South Florida. I look forward to working at the GSTC and helping Georgia sea turtles.

Please join me in welcoming Erin to the Team!

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette
Marine Field Programs Coordinator

Sea turtle nesting season is well under way!  And while we are not getting the numbers we saw last year, they are still up from 2007 AND we have those 2 leatherback nests!  Take a look…

Want a chance to possibly see a nesting turtle?  Signed up for one of our Turtle Walks today!  Space is limit so don’t miss out…call for your reservation today: 912-635-4444!

Sincerely,
Stefanie Ouellette
Marine Field Programs Coordinator

We are the 2009 Sea Turtle Patrol Interns!!!

(Back Row L-R: Amanda Noble, John Lyons; Front Row L-R: Simon Dilts, Stefanie Ouellette, Norah Stevens-Kittner, Ashley Hill)

Hello Turtle Enthusiasts!
We are the 2009 Patrol Interns, and we would like to introduce ourselves to you. Each of us has written a brief paragraph about ourselves. The introductions are in order based on the dates of our arrivals. We are hoping you will envision meeting us in the order that we met each other.

4/1/09 Simon Dilts
I am what I am I am…a turtle patrol intern man (well more of a big kid) I was first introduced to the sea turtle world in the summer of 2000 and fell in love with it. It helped orient me to college where I received a B.S. in Organismal Biology from Adams State College in 2008. After I was done, I knew I wanted to work with turtles again, and was fortunate enough to land one of the Sea Turtle Patrol Internships with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center last summer. I loved it so much that I came back for another round this year. Chances are if you don’t see me on the beach (most likely covered in sand with a big smile on my face) you will see me in the rehabilitation pavilion at the Center helping the vet staff take care of some of our sea turtle patients, that you are welcome to come see your self! Check out the Center’s wonderful website to find out more!

4/30/09 Amanda Noble
I received a B.S. in psychobiology from the University of New England in 2008. I’ve spent the last year writing and editing my young adult fiction book, Entrance into the Sands Forest. My book debuts this summer, while I’m at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center learning to protect the beautiful and endangered sea turtles of the Atlantic. I intend on blogging often; so I would love to know what you, My Audience, wants to know about interning at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.

5/1/09 Ashley Hill
I graduated from Florida Institute of Technology in May 2008 with a B. S. in Marine Biology. While in school, I performed several research projects on the beaches of Brevard County and in the Indian River Lagoon. I also volunteered with the Sea Turtle Preservation Society in Indialantic, Fl and was involved in Beta Beta Beta, the biological honor society. After graduation, I interned at the Smithsonian Institute working on the United States Antarctic Program’s website. I am excited to be living on a beautiful island while working with amazing sea turtles!

5/2/09 John Lyons
I recently completed my B. S. in Biology at Northeastern University, where I did fieldwork in Tahiti and California. I love diving, and discovered that I also love sea turtles while interning in the New England Aquarium’s Giant Ocean Tank! Aside from aquarium animals, I’ve also done husbandry work caring for a pharmaceutical company’s zebra fish colony. I’m really happy to be here doing work that could help sea turtles, and I hope that I’ll get some inspiration this summer for work that I can do as a graduate student.

5/12/09 Norah Stevens-Kittner
I recently graduated in May 2009 from Guilford College with a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Spanish. I first “encountered” sea turtles while studying abroad in Mexico, working mainly on a project tagging Green sea turtles and has loved them ever since. I am really excited to be here at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center as a patrol intern and will definitely keep everyone posted on the crazy adventures here at Jekyll Island.

Thank you for spending some time with us today. Please, check the Georgia Sea Turtle Center website (http://www.georgiaseaturtlecenter.org) for the blogs that we will be maintaining throughout the 2009 sea turtle nesting season.

Sincerely,
Flippin’ Awesome (the unofficial band name of the 2009 patrol interns)
THE 2009 PATROL INTERNS!

Please join me, Stefanie Ouellette, Marine Field Programs Coordinator and ‘leader of this pack’, in welcoming the 2009 Sea Turtle Patrol Interns!!

HAPPY TURTLING!!!!