Paula and Laura dig for eggs.
At 9:45 PM a call came in from some Carova residents. “There’s another turtle! She’s hauled out about 1/4 way up the beach already and I think she’s going to lay eggs.” Betty and Karen arrived on scene first followed by Nanci and Valerie. Then we got the word, “She’s doing it, she’s laying eggs!”
Jill hands Laura an egg from the nest. Paul prepares the egg carton for relocation.
Nesting Responders staked off the site for the night so that the team could prepare a response in the morning. When the team arrived, they saw that the turtle had laid her eggs just below the average high tide line so they prepared for a relocation up the beach.
Each egg was carefully removed from the egg chamber and placed in egg cartons for transport.
Nesting Responders removed each egg, one by one until the last came out of the nest, 78 total. The eggs were transported up the beach past the tide line toward the dune where a new site was prepared. NESTers replicated the depth and width of the egg chamber, lined it with sand from the original nest site, and then placed each egg in carefully in the same order (last one out was the first one back so the bottom eggs remained on the bottom and the top on top).
Nest #10 staked off.