sources — street lights, motel and house 

 lights and car lights. Wandering baby 

 turtles become the victims of ghost 

 crabs, sea gulls and the heat of the sun. 



Besides being easily drawn astray by 

 lights, hatchlings have another 

 obstacle between the nest and sea — 

 off-road vehicle (ORV) tracks. To a 

 baby turtle the size of a half-dollar, 

 climbing out of an ORV track can be 

 like scaling a 10-foot wall for you and 

 me. Riley Hoggard says the problem is 

 particularly acute along the park ser- 

 vice beaches where ORV driving is 

 allowed. "They get caught in the 

 tracks and they can't get out," he says. 

 "They end up following the vehicle's 

 path parallel to the beach and that just 

 gives them more time to be prey for 

 the ghost crabs and the sea gulls." 



Paul Hosier, a biologist at UNC- 

 Wilmington who has been doing Sea 

 Grant research on ORVs, confirmed 

 that ORVs are indeed a threat to the 

 small hatchlings. In a study at Ft. 

 Fisher, Hosier marked off three beach 

 areas — one area undisturbed, one area 

 marred by a three-wheeled ORV, and a 

 final area heavily trampled by people. 

 He then released 40 hatchlings. Of the 

 16 that passed through the undistur- 

 bed area, all made it to the surf. In the 

 ORV area, 11 of 13 hatchlings trudged 

 their way to the sea, while in the area 

 trampled by people only six of 11 

 finished crossing the beach. 



Of those hatchlings that did not 

 make it to the surf, over half became 

 inverted and could not right them- 

 selves, becoming easy targets of prey, 

 Hosier says. Also, he notes that those 

 hatchlings that crossed the undistur- 

 bed area moved at a much faster pace 

 than the hatchlings that had to crawl 

 in and out of the valleys left by vehi- 

 cles and people. The faster the move- 

 ment to the surf, the lower the preda- 

 tion rate, he says. (Note: No turtles 

 died in this experiment. All turtles that 

 became inverted or lost their way 

 among the tracks were picked up after 

 an allotted time and transferred to 

 surf.) 



But sea turtles are sometimes in 

 trouble only seconds after they leave 

 their mother's body as eggs. Raccoons 

 and foxes often hover in the shadows 

 as a female loggerhead nests, waiting 

 for a midnight snack of eggs. Raccoons 

 are particularly voracious, as they can 

 gobble down an entire nest of eggs in 

 just minutes. Schwartz says many of 

 the raccoon's own natural predators 



have been eliminated with develop- 

 ment, causing their populations to 

 boom. And raccoons along Onslow 

 Beach and Bald Head Island are 

 creating havoc with the loggerhead 

 nests. 



Charles Peterson says the nests at 

 Camp Lejeune are being protected from 

 predation by wire baskets. Peterson's 

 assistants patrol the beach at night 

 during nesting season, watching for the 

 turtles to nest. As the females com- 

 plete their tasks, the assistants cover 

 the nests with the baskets. Peterson 

 says the baskets are built of wide-mesh 

 wire that allows the hatchlings to 

 crawl away. 



Peterson and the marines at Camp 

 Lejeune aren't the only ones in North 

 Carolina tracking and aiding sea tur- 

 tles. Programs are also going on at the 

 Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, 

 the Cape Lookout National Seashore 

 and Hammocks Beach State Park. 



Debbie Crouse, who is on loan from 

 the N.C. Heritage Program to the 

 state Wildlife Resources Commission, 

 is coordinating a statewide sea turtle 

 nesting survey. The Wildlife Commis- 

 sion is paying to have the state's 

 coastline overflown regularly to detect 

 turtle crawls. Crouse takes this infor- 



Photo by U S. Marine Corps 



mation and coordinates it with the 

 ground surveys being done by the 

 other agencies. With the results, 

 Crouse hopes to determine key nesting 

 beaches and, eventually, put together 

 a cooperative state program for the 

 turtle's protection. 



On a national level, the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service has appoin- 

 ted a Sea Turtle Recovery Team. Otto 

 Florschutz, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 biologist in Washington, N.C, is part 

 of that team. He says the team is try- 

 ing to draw up a management plan 

 that will restore the sea turtle popula- 

 tions so they will no longer need to be 

 protected. 



But while programs in the U.S. fight 

 to save sea turtles, many other coun- 

 tries continue to exploit the marine 

 reptile. Many turtles, especially the 

 green turtles, are still killed for food in 

 parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and 

 Central and South American. The 

 hawksbill is slaughtered for its shell, 

 which is used to make tortoiseshell 

 combs, jewelry, brush handles and eye 

 glasses. And, experts say, until other 

 countries take a stand for conservation 

 of the sea turtles, the age-old reptile 

 will remain in trouble. 



Baby green turtles at Camp Lejeune waddle from their nest 



