Game Cameras Update

Did you contribute to last year’s Trash for Turtles fundraiser? Money from that fundraiser went to purchasing solar powered game cameras for Sapelo Island’s sea turtle nest surveys. I even helped set up a few of them last summer (see my post here)! The goal of these game cameras is to document predators and hatching. Now that sea turtle nesting season is over, here are a few things we found….

Nest #64 hatchlings emerging from their nest. So cool!

These pictures showed scientists predators were around the nests even when they couldn’t see their tracks the next morning. However, ghost crabs and hatchlings were not being detected by the cameras unless they were really close. Next sea turtle nesting season, instead of having one camera on each nest, they will try using multiple cameras on each nest.

Georgia DNR’s Sea Turtle Biologist Mr. Mark Dodd says, “The ultimate goal is to estimate the number of hatchlings that emerge from the nest that make [it] to the water. It is a step in estimating first year survival.”

For all those who contributed last year, thank you for contributing to sea turtle science! It will be exciting to see what happens next season, so stay tuned here!

Have a great day!