LITTLE ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Witnessing a baby sea turtle venture from the nest to the ocean ranks as an awesome sight for any nature lover. But wait until you see what the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Little St. Simons Island turtle tech captured recently.
Little St. Simons Island is on the Georgia coast, one of the state’s barrier islands. And although it shares a name with its larger counterpart, St. Simons Island, that’s where the similarities between the two end. Little St. Simons encompasses 10,000 intrusion-free acres of maritime forests and marshlands, seven miles of shell-strewn beaches and is a virtually untouched island.
Every day, Natalie DePalma bikes all seven miles of the island’s beach. As the DNR’s turtle tech for the island, part of her job is marking new turtle nests and inventorying hatched nests to account for how many babies emerged from each one.
Little St. Simons Island is a prime nesting habitat for loggerhead sea turtles every summer from May through September. This year, DePalma tracked 124 nests lining the eastern side of the island. Thus far, 88 of the nests have hatched. The information collected on Little St. Simons Island each year helps to craft conservation policies for the loggerhead sea turtles across the southeastern United States.
Recently, while biking down the beach at sunrise, she spotted a nest that was coming to life. See the video above to watch the baby sea turtles emerge from the nest.
Here’s another video DePalma captured in August.