Sea Turtle Nesting Season in Georgia – 2024 + 2025
As we gear up for the upcoming sea turtle nesting season, which typically occurs annually in Georgia from late May to mid-August, I’m reflecting on the 2024 sea turtle nesting season and want to share what I’m excited about for 2025! Hopefully you, dear reader, will get excited about the sea turtles coming soon to a coastline near you and learn how you can help them increase their odds of a successful nesting season!
You may not know that Georgia’s 100ish miles of coastline provide vital sea turtle nesting habitat for the endangered loggerhead sea turtle and has thus been designated critical habitat – a legally recognized designation that the US Fish & Wildlife Service assigns to areas deemed critical to the survival of threatened or endangered species. Loggerheads are the primary sea turtle species that rely on Georgia’s coast to lay their nests, but five of the world’s seven species – Hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, green, and leatherback sea turtles – also visit the coast for food, shelter, and travel corridors.
You also may not be aware that the Loggerhead sea turtle population has rebounded in the last 30 years, thanks in large part to both changes in fishing industry gear and major conservation successes. Shoutout to Wild Cumberland founder and sea turtle defender Carol Ruckdeschel, who was a major advocate for the adoption of the TED – the Turtle Excluder Device – that the fishing industry is now mandated to use to prevent the bycatch of turtles!
I want to talk about one group facilitating Georgia’s conservation successes: the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative, a powerhouse of over 200 Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Coastal Resources Division agency employees, researchers, and volunteers.
Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative – Georgia’s league of sea turtle defenders
If you’re on the coast during the summer, you may be lucky enough to see mature sea turtles scuttling up the beach to lay eggs in nests near the dune line or tiny new hatchlings following the moonlight back to the sea.
If you’re even luckier, you may get to participate in DNR’s Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative in one of the coveted sea turtle monitoring teams at one of 13 sites along the Georgia coast. Monitoring teams patrol sea turtle nesting sites for the duration of the season, record nest and hatching data, and protect nests from king tides and other weather disturbances, predation, and human impacts.
To be clear, this is no easy job. Volunteers and personnel stay up throughout at night or monitor the shoreline into the heat of summer days to spot turtle crawl tracks; locate – and sometimes relocate – nests; redirect hatchlings who get turned around following artificial light away from the water; and come into close contact with predators like coyotes and wild hogs trolling nests.
Each site has recorded annual data for the last 20-30 years, and the historical data give us amazing insights about the estimated population sizes, annual nesting variability (did you know that every other year is generally a “low nesting year”?), and species conservation success.
2024 Annual Turtle Meeting
In September 2024, Carol and I had the privilege of attending the Georgia DNR annual turtle meeting. At the end of each sea turtle nesting season, site monitoring teams, researchers, and advocates gather to share site stats (number of nests, hatchlings, false crawls, strandings), the state of predation, and lessons learned. Of course, there are an abundance of stories of mishaps and successes, like getting stuck in the mud or becoming the community sea turtle liaison. The energy of the 2024 meeting was mostly jubilant, somber at times… and maybe a bit relieved for the long, hot season to conclude.
Although Georgia didn’t reach its established recovery goal of 2,800 nests in 2024, it did record 2,490 nests and contributed to a 36-year dataset, which indicates an overall trajectory of recovery, reflecting major conservation successes!
Damage from Hurricane Debbie and predation – primarily from coyotes, wild hogs, and raccoons – were the greatest threats to sea turtle nests. 2024 was a low nesting year, as predicted, so get ready for a high nesting year in 2025!
Cumberland Island led the count with 786 nests, thanks in large part to its vital 18-mile undeveloped shoreline and minimal human disturbance! Cumberland’s conservation success demonstrates the irreplaceable value of protecting critical habitats via federally designated Wilderness Areas and marine sanctuaries and why Wild Cumberland fights so hard to protect the Cumberland Island Wilderness! The Cumberland turtle team also relocated a whopping 170 nests to prevent loss last summer’s extremely wet and stormy weather.
The greatest threat to sea turtle egg losses on Cumberland was coyote predation, causing 12 times as many egg losses as feral hogs, the second largest predator. To learn more about coyotes in urban environments and the threat of coyote predation, check out the special Wild Cumberland podcast episode with Dr. Chris Mowry from the Atlanta Coyote Project!
What Can We Do to Help the Sea Turtles?
I’m glad you asked! There are many simple things we can collectively do to protect sea turtles:
- Use red lights at night – Hatchlings use moonlight to find the sea and are disoriented by white light.
- Turn off beachfront house lights – This helps both turtles and migratory birds.
- Never drive on the beach – Especially at night; hatchlings are tiny and easy to miss.
- Practice Leave No Trace (LNT) – Don’t disturb wildlife, and pack out what you pack in. Wild Cumberland’s LNT Guide can help.
- Report turtle sightings – Call the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative at (478) 994-1438.
- Report injured or harassed turtles – Call 1-800-2-SAVE-ME (1-800-272-8363). Note tag color and number if applicable.
- Thank the people doing the work – Let the Georgia DNR Coastal Resources Division know their work matters: Contact CRD
Article by Dani Purvis.
Carol and Mark Dodd:
DNR Mission Statement:
