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SAVANNAH --- Fall is settling in, and sea turtles are wrapping up their annual hatching season on Georgia’s beaches.
The nesting season started out promising, but scientists say after a strong summer of nesting, baby turtles are hatching at a rate slightly below average thanks to predators and rising seas.
Predators like hogs and coyotes have always been a threat, but tides on Georgia barrier islands like Cumberland and Sapelo are higher than ever. The sea level at the Fort Pulaski tide gauge, near Tybee Island, has risen by about a foot since 1950, and the rate of sea level rise is increasing. In June and August, high tides repeatedly swept in higher than predicted, by two feet in some cases.
Credit: NOAA
Credit: NOAA
Loggerhead sea turtles – the most common in Georgia – are considered threatened in this part of the world, though their numbers have been improving in recent years thanks to conservation efforts.
Comprehensive nesting surveys first began in 1989. This year, loggerhead females hauling themselves up onto Georgia beaches achieved their third-highest nesting season on record, laying more than 3,400 nests.
That’s fewer nests than last year, which was 4,071 nests, but that’s ok, said Mark Dodd of the Department of Natural Resources, the coordinator of the state’s sea turtle program.
“We’re more interested in sort of the long-term trend in nesting,” he said. “And so, in this case, the long-term trend shows about a 4% increase in nesting over the last 35 years.”
But the baby sea turtles in those nests face long odds to survive. Predators love to eat the eggs before they even hatch, and seawater can swamp the nests. On average, only about 60% of Georgia’s sea turtle eggs successfully hatch.
Dodd said that number is down slightly this year, to 55%, thanks in part to tides coming in higher than predicted.
“That’s one of the issues that we have is that, you know, sea level seems to be rising a little faster in Georgia than some other places on the Atlantic coast,” he said.
Trained turtle experts relocate nests out of range of high tides, but if the tides defy forecasters, some nests still get swamped. As climate change causes sea levels to keep rising, those unexpectedly high tides are getting more common.
But there is good news for Georgia’s turtles, Dodd said. Many of the state’s beaches remain undeveloped, which allows the barrier islands along the coast to change shape naturally and for the sand to shift from island to island.
“As long as the sand sharing system is working, and there’s plenty of sand in the system, as sea level rises, we’ll always have beaches,” he said. “They might not be in the same place, they might move landward or seaward, but there’ll always be places for turtles to nest on those undeveloped beaches.”
Credit: Grist
Credit: Grist
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