News2,421 nests on 13 Lowcountry beaches, and the hatchlings are runningThe state’s monitoring database has 2,421 sea turtle nests on the coast this season, from Kiawah Island at 496 down to Sullivan’s Island at 17, and the early nests are hatching.South Carolina's nest monitoring database counts 2,421 sea turtle nests on the thirteen monitored beaches between Daufuskie Island and Sullivan's Island this season. Kiawah Island is carrying 496 of them. Sullivan's Island has 17. The nests laid in May are coming up now. A nest empties in a rush, which is why the people who watch them call it a boil. Sea Turtle Patrol HHI caught one on Hilton Head in the morning, which is the less usual version, because nests normally go after dark when the sand has cooled. Posted to TikTok by @seaturtlepatrolhhi. Kiawah is carrying more nests than anywhere else on the coast, and the season there runs from nesting females in early summer to hatchlings now. Posted to TikTok by @akersellis. Here is every monitored beach, from the live database. Sea turtle nests recorded this season, by beach. Source: South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. BeachTownNests Kiawah IslandKiawah496 Hilton Head IslandHilton Head409 Edisto Beach State ParkEdisto286 Hunting Island State ParkBeaufort228 Botany Bay IslandEdisto178 Edisto Town BeachEdisto170 Botany Bay WMA and Heritage PreserveEdisto152 Folly BeachFolly Beach127 Daufuskie IslandDaufuskie119 Harbor IslandBeaufort104 Fripp IslandBeaufort95 Isle of PalmsIsle of Palms40 Sullivan's IslandSullivan's Island17 Total2,421 All 14 rows Each of those rows starts as one female coming ashore at night and digging above the dune line. Volunteers find the crawl the next morning, mark the nest and count what is in it. Posted to TikTok by @iowa.david. About sixty days later the nest goes. Once it does, SCDNR requires three days before anyone digs it out, so that the stragglers get out on their own. Only then does permitted patrol staff run the final inventory. Posted to TikTok by @seaturtlepatrolhhi. Those inventories are done in the open and people watch them. Posted to TikTok by @sherryhud. An inventory turns up hatchlings that never made it out of the chamber. This one had a lot of them still to come. Posted to TikTok by @jackboconnell. The one thing that matters if you are on the beach at night is light. Hatchlings find the water by heading for the brightest part of the horizon, which under a natural sky is the ocean reflecting blue and green. A porch light, a flashlight or a camera flash beats the ocean and the hatchlings go inland instead. The Department of Natural Resources calls it disorientation, and it kills them: they burn the energy they need for the swim offshore and end up on open sand where predators find them. Posted to TikTok by @seaturtlepatrolhhi. The rule the patrols ask for is red light only, never white. SCDNR asks beachfront households to keep exterior lights off from dusk to dawn between May and October, and to close blinds where interior light reaches the sand. Hatching runs to the end of October, so the database totals above will be higher by the time the season closes. On the site On the Water Explore the Lowcountry Sources SCDNR Sea Turtle Nest Monitoring System SCDNR: Lights Out for Loggerheads