Kiawah’s Legendary Loggerheads
K
By Lynn Sager, Permit Holder, Kiawah Island Turtle Patrol
iawah Island has had a long-standing love
affair with the “ancient lady” of our Island,
Caretta caretta, commonly known as the
loggerhead sea turtle. Her ancestors go
back perhaps 150 million years, to the time of the dinosaurs.
Kiawah’s focus on Loggerhead protection began in 1972 when
a group of Charleston college students sought to observe their
nesting patterns.
After receiving permission from the Island’s owners,
they applied for and received a small grant from the South
Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources Department (today’s
SCDNR) as well as the use of a Jeep for night patrol on the
beach. Their observation of predation by raccoons led to
the installation of a rookery in 1973. The following year
heavy rains and flooding caused all but nine of the nests to
wash away. In an attempt to save the hatchlings, the friends
constructed a shed and placed it in the secondary dunes. Eggs
were packed in Styrofoam coolers, stored in the shed, and
periodically moistened. The hatchlings were released within
24 hours of emergence, and in an ongoing effort to protect
the turtles, these practices continued until 1977.
Subsequently, fungi and manpower issues, as well as
concerns about interfering with temperatures that affect the
sex of the hatchlings, caused re-evaluation and modification
of the process. (For a full account of the early efforts by the
students, see “What Was Old Is New Again” in Naturally
Kiawah Volume 33 Winter/Spring 2015.)
In 1977 the Kiawah Island Community Association
(KICA) took over the program, and hatchling protection
continued, but the education of residents and visitors became
a primary focus. At this time, the loggerhead was designated
endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act
and remains there to this day. The shed approach was soon
discontinued, and procedures similar to those in effect today
were established.
In 1985, the SCDNR began issuing permits for sea turtle
protection programs. The first permit recipient was Keith
Kriet, a naturalist with KICA. According to Charlotte Hope,
SCDNR wildlife biologist, before the institution of protection
permits, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service required
scientific research/collection permits.
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