Sea Turtles Are Here on Dauphin Island!

Summer is the time for spotting sea turtle activity on the beach! They are certainly making their presence known on Dauphin Island and the beaches of Alabama. Four nests with eggs have been found on Dauphin Island and there are signs that more mama sea turtles are looking for areas to lay their eggs.
According to Share the Beach-Dauphin Island, an organization formed to coordinate volunteers to protect nesting activities and educate the public about sea turtles, the season started out slow, but evidence of sea turtles on the beach is on the rise. Along with the four nests, they have found several incidents of false crawls on the island. A false crawl occurs when a turtle crawls onto the beach looking for a potential nest site and then for some reason goes back to the ocean when she doesn’t find a suitable site, leaving only tracks behind. One turtle can have up to 7 nests per season, and lay up to 125 eggs in each nest.
One mama turtle had a great adventure over the Fourth of July weekend. She was found in a water ditch in Fort Morgan after she got disoriented from some bright lights near the beach and instead of crawling back into the ocean, she crawled inland. Luckily she was found the next day and Share the Beach volunteers helped her back to the ocean. They noticed the turtle had a tag on her flipper. Through some detective work, they discovered her name was Gracie and she had been tagged in Fort Morgan in 2015. Share the Ocean discourages bright lights on the beach and on beach houses because they can confuse turtles and cause them to get lost on their way back to the ocean.

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