many female turtles will return to the 

 same beaches repeatedly to lay their 

 eggs. Some scientists believe the 

 mother is even returning to her own 

 beach of birth. But Debbie Crouse, 

 coordinator of the N.C. Wildlife 

 Resources Commission's project for 

 sea turtles in North Carolina, says 

 evidence to support that belief is not 

 conclusive. Until scientists can find a 

 tag that will expand or remain at- 

 tached to the turtle from the time it 

 hatches until adulthood, she says, no 

 firm conclusions can be made. 



Frank Schwartz, a biologist at the 

 UNC Institute of Marine Sciences who 

 has been studying turtles for 25 years, 

 says he has developed a tiny square 

 metal tag, containing information 

 about where and when the turtle 

 hatched. The tag can be inserted under 

 the skin of the turtle's flipper. It 

 should remain with the turtle 

 throughout its life, Schwartz says. 



But other researchers say the draw- 

 back to this method is the bulky X-ray 

 equipment needed to detect the tags. 



But some method must be 

 developed that will fill the gaps in our 

 knowledge of the sea turtle's life. 

 Crouse says once the hatchlings leave 

 the beach, researchers totally "lose 

 track of the turtles" until they become 

 large enough to get caught in fisher- 

 men's trawl nets. Schwartz says he 

 believes the loggerheads spend the first 

 year of their life floating and feeding 

 off sargassum weed. "But after that we 

 just don't know what they do," he 

 says. 



Once sea turtles grow to adult size 

 they have few natural predators. Their 

 hard shell provides the protection 

 needed to fend off most assailants. But 

 scientists believe that sea turtles must 

 rely largely on instinct to survive. 

 With a brain the size of a grape, a tur- 

 tle has little room to think. 



Most turtle researchers think the 

 turtles reach sexual maturity between 

 the ages of 13 and 20. The loggerhead, 

 the only sea turtle that consistently 

 nests in North Carolina, mates Vi to l A 

 mile offshore. The male rides the 

 female for several hours as they mate, 

 fertilizing the eggs she will lay that 

 summer. About two weeks after 

 mating, the female loggerhead will 

 come ashore to lay her first batch of 

 eggs. The mother turtle may lay two to 

 three more nests during the same sum- 

 mer. An average nest contains about 

 120 leathery white eggs. 



In recent incubation studies, 

 Schwartz and other researchers have 

 learned that the sand temperature in 

 which the turtle nests affects the 

 hatchling's sex. Cooler sand tem- 

 peratures yield males, while warm 

 temperatures hatch more females. 

 Schwartz says more males are hatched 

 in the cooler nests of early and late 

 summer, but females dominate in the 

 warm mid-summer nests. 



The loggerhead turtles will hatch in 

 about 60 days. They use an egg tooth 

 attached to their snout to chisel their 

 way out of the shell. Most of the eggs 

 hatch about the same time because the 

 turtles must work together to escape 

 their nest. "The turtles work as a 

 unit," says Charles Peterson, wildlife 

 management supervisor at the U.S. 

 Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune. 

 "The hatchlings at the top of the nest 

 scrape and shift the sand downward 

 while the ones on the bottom pack the 

 sand, building a rising platform." 



The baby turtles usually emerge at 

 night or early morning. Then they 

 begin their scramble to the sea. But 

 the soft, vulnerable hatchlings make 

 easy pickings for ghost crabs and sea 

 gulls. Only a few hatchlings make it to 



The wee hours of a June morning 

 find a mother loggerhead emerging 

 from the surf to perform a ritual. At 

 least it seems like a ritual, because so 

 many loggerheads have performed it 

 before in almost exactly the same way. 

 The mother loggerhead has come 

 ashore to deposit her first cache of 

 eggs. 



Those who have watched the 

 loggerhead perform her egg-bearing 

 duties say the performance is a grand 

 one, and well worth sacrificing sleep to 

 catch the opening curtain. 



"It is indeed impressive," says Deb- 

 bie Crouse. "It's very late at night on a 

 beach in the middle of nowhere and 

 you suddenly see this four hundred- 

 pound creature hauling out of the 

 water. You see her expending all this 

 energy just to pull herself forward. It's 

 like watching something prehistoric." 



And the sea turtle indeed has 

 prehistoric ties. Dating back about 150 

 million years, the sea turtle may be 

 linked to a giant land turtle that 



the surf, and then they must evade 

 large predators like sharks and 

 bluefish. 



What are the turtle's chances for 

 survival? Schwartz cites this example: 

 "There were 63 nests last year at 

 Camp Lejeune. About 70 percent of the 

 eggs from each nest will hatch. About 

 one hatchling per nest will make it 

 across the beach to the surf. That's 63 

 altogether to the ocean, and of that 

 number only half, or 32, will make it 

 past the sharks and bluefish. So, out of 

 7,000 eggs, you may get 30 adult tur- 

 tles." 



Schwartz and other scientists are 

 working on incubation methods and 

 head-start programs that may increase 

 the survival rate of the endangered sea 

 turtles. But more must be known 

 about these reptiles before scientists 

 can say any program will help. 



"I'd rather not know everything 

 there is to know about sea turtles. I 

 like some of the mystery about the 

 creatures," says Riley Hoggard, a park 

 technician at the Cape Lookout 

 National Seashore. "But if there is a 

 chance they will become extinct, I 

 want to know everything I can to help 

 them." 



roamed with dinosaurs. Scientists 

 speculate that when the turtle took to 

 the sea, its feet gradually changed to 

 flippers, the body became more 

 streamlined and the bony shell cover- 

 ing its underside became smaller. After 

 the initial changes, scientists say sea 

 turtles changed very little. Today's sea 

 turtle may look very much like its an- 

 cestors thousands of years ago. 



"What struck me the first time I 

 watched one lay her eggs," says Sally 

 Hopkins, a biologist with the South 

 Carolina Wildlife and Marine 

 Resources Department, "was you saw 

 this form in the darkness, then as she 

 pulled herself further out of the water 

 you saw these twinkling lights all over 

 her shell from the phosphorescence and 

 organisms growing on the turtle's 

 back. It was so magical." 



As the mother turtle lumbers from 

 the surf, dragging her tremendous 

 body toward the dunes, she stops here 

 and there along the way — some say to 

 rest. But others say that if you watch 



A ritual in the night 



