KIIRA FINDS ALREADY HATCHED SEA TURTLE NEST

In one of the photos above, Kiira is pointing to a sea turtle nest that hatched within the last week or so.  Kiira stayed with her grandparents over the Labor Day weekend and went on several "turtle nest walks" with her grandpa.  We did not see any hatchlings that were struggling to reach the sea in the morning after sunrise, but that was probably a good sign that most of them had already made it to the ocean during the night. We also found a few hatchling tracks that we followed for many yards that ran parallel to ocean shore.  Fortunately, all of those eventually ended going to the water's edge, so we guessed that they had made it safely into the ocean. Kiira also found some sea turtle egg shells that were brought up to the surface of the nest by the hatchlings that had already climbed out of the nest.  In another photo, she is holding a "dead" egg that was dug up by an EAI employee because most of the eggs in the nest had already died and the nest was not going to hatch any hatchlings.  Kiira now has several dried sea turtle egg shells to add to her collection.