Georgia closes out a slow sea turtle nesting season, but long-term success of species remains bright

Caption

File photo of a loggerhead sea turtle nesting at dawn on Ossabaw Island, Georgia.

Credit: Georgia Department of Natural Resources

The 2024 sea turtle nesting season in Georgia was a slow but largely predictable one, owing to cyclical patterns in migration that also point to a busy nesting season next year.

2,521 nests were recorded across 13 beaches in Coastal Georgia throughout the nesting season, which runs from May through October. All but 31 were identified as belonging to the loggerhead species.

This year's yield was down from the 3,478 nests recorded in 2023 and the 4,089 nests in 2022.

Slow seasons are typically followed by busy ones, according to Georgia Department of Natural Resources biologist Mark Dodd, who runs the state's sea turtle conservation program and said that nesting occurs in three-year waves of high, medium and low productivity.

“As a biologist, we're a little more interested in the long-term trend in nesting rather than an individual year's nest total,” he said. “The good news is that the overall trend in nesting over the last 36 years is that the population is increasing at about 4% annually. It indicates that we're in a recovery period for loggerheads.”

Recent slow seasons, including this year's, are much higher than they were in decades past, said Dodd, who added that when Georgia saw its lowest year in 2004, when fewer than 300 nests were recorded, “we thought we were going to lose loggerheads as a species.”

He attributed the long-term success of loggerheads to conservation practices which began in the 1970s and '80s and which took decades to see measurable results, as female sea turtles do not begin laying eggs until they are about 30 years old.

One such practice has been the deployment of turtle excluder devices, also known as TEDs, which are passable metal bars installed in trawl fishing nets that allow sea turtles to escape.

An unforeseen setback for sea turtles this year was Hurricane Debby in early August. Not only the heavy volume of rain — about 8 to 12 inches in 24 hours, depending on the beach — but also the relatively early timing of the hurricane hindered hatching, as about 78% of nests were still incubating when Debby arrived.

Artificial light from coastal development continues to be an issue for sea turtles in Georgia, Dodd said, as diffuse nighttime light pollution known as skyglow can lead newborns astray as they try to find the ocean.

As is typical, Cumberland Island National Seashore in the far southeast corner of the state led this year's count with 786 nests.

It was followed by Blackbeard Island (315 nests), St. Catherines Island (281), Ossabaw Island (276) and Wassaw Island (219). All other beaches each recorded fewer than 200 nests.