Today is the 27 days since the first sea turtle nest was laid on Hunting Island this year. We have now hit 53 nests - that’s more than the record years of 2023 (195) and 2022 (175) at the same time.
I wanted to see if any other year came close to this pace (that’s about 2 nests a day on average). HI hit 50 nests this year on June 8th or day 25 since the first nest. I looked at 9 fast start years in the period between 2010 and 2023. Only 3 years hit 50 nests in less than 30 days - 2024, 2022 and 2016. But no year, I have found so far (based on historical records), did it faster than 25 days - 2024 holds that record.
2 years did it on or before June 8th (the day we hit 50 nests this year) - June 6, 2022 and June 8, 2016. Even the record nesting year of 2023 took 35 days or until June 9th to reach 50 nests.
So all in all, what a start!!
2024 is starting to move into line with what the 2022 nesting season
looked like. Another big push from the mother turtles in 3-5 days might create more separation from 2022. That’s when the 9 to 11 mother sea turtles MIGHT return to Huting Island if they stay true to nesting every 10-14 days and return to the same beach. Only another spike in nesting and DNA results will tell us.
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