North Carolina Marine Turtles 
97 
Fig. 1. Locations of Dermochelys sightings off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, 
1976-1980. Dots indicate specific sightings. Dashed line encloses approximately 
8+ sightings made from charter boats not equipped with LORAN instrumenta- 
tion. X indicates turtles found dead on beach. Contour lines are in fathoms. 
South Carolina specimen reported by Schwartz (1954) was trawled from 
water 25 to 30 feet deep, as were a significant number of the North 
Carolina turtles. In the 1979 aerial surveys of the North Carolina Wildlife 
Resources Commission, only two leatherbacks were sighted. During 225 
hours of flight time, the spotters seldom ventured more than two to four 
