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First sea turtle nest of the season found over the weekend in Ga. (Source: Georgia DNR) By WTOC Staff | May 3, 2021 at 1:01 PM EDT - Updated May 3 at 1:01 PM
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - The first sea turtle nest of the 2021 season in Georgia was found Saturday, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
DNR says the loggerhead sea turtle nest was found on Little Cumberland Island. Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative members spotted a second nest on Sunday on Sea Island.
Georgia Sea Turtle Program Coordinator Mark Dodd said the first nests are “always around the first of May.”
Former University of Georgia professor Dr. Jim Richardson started the Little Cumberland Island Sea Turtle Project in 1964. DNR says the loggerhead monitoring effort is the oldest in North America and shares the status worldwide with a program started in South Africa the same year.
A conservation group filed suit asking a judge to stop a federal agency from dredging a Georgia harbor during the nesting season for rare sea turtles that began over the weekend.
The group One Hundred Miles filed suit Friday in U.S. District Court against the Army Corps of Engineers, which plans to end a policy that for 30 years suspended coastal dredging from the Carolinas to Florida during the warmer months when sea turtles are most abundant in coastal waters and lay their eggs on Southern beaches.
Those seasonal windows have been credited with minimizing deaths and injuries to sea turtles by dredges that suck up sediments to clear waterways used by commercial ships. But the Army Corps plans to scrap them after federal scientists last year concluded that sea turtles protected by the Endangered Species Act can likely endure 150 deaths annually from year-round dredging.
Judge asked to halt dredges during sea turtle nesting season
RUSS BYNUM, Associated Press
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SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) A conservation group filed suit asking a judge to stop a federal agency from dredging a Georgia harbor during the nesting season for rare sea turtles that began over the weekend.
The group One Hundred Miles filed suit Friday in U.S. District Court against the Army Corps of Engineers, which plans to end a policy that for 30 years suspended coastal dredging from the Carolinas to Florida during the warmer months when sea turtles are most abundant in coastal waters and lay their eggs on Southern beaches.
OHM, SELC Challenge Unprecedented Changes to Georgia Dredging Windows
SAVANNAH, GA– Today One Hundred Miles (OHM), represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), filed a challenge against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ unlawful decision to eliminate highly successful seasonal limitations on dredging projects that have protected sea turtles and other marine life for decades.
Because hopper dredging can be harmful to sea turtles, fisheries, and other coastal wildlife, the Corps has historically conducted dredging activity in Georgia during the winter months (December 15-March 31), when adult loggerheads and other sensitive species are far less abundant in Georgia’s coastal waters.