The Diamondback Terrapin:
Icon of Kiawah’s Saltmarsh
By Michael E. Dorcas, Ph.D.
M
y first day at Kiawah was a little unnerving. Unlike most people
that visit Kiawah who are there to lie on the beach or play golf,
I was there to work, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting
myself into. It was June 1995, and I had just finished my Ph.D.
and started as a postdoctoral fellow at the Savannah River Ecology Lab working
with Dr. J. Whitfield “Whit” Gibbons. Most of Whit’s lab had headed down to
Kiawah Island to try to capture as many diamondback terrapins as possible, but
I had never even seen one and had no idea how we were going to catch them.
36
Photo by Jackie Guzy