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Hurricane Dorian Had Relatively Little Impact On Sea Turtle Nests At Cape Hatteras

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Published Date

September 20, 2019
A 6' escarpment left by the storm reveals a cross section of a green sea turtle nest/NPS

A 6-foot escarpment left by Hurricane Dorian reveals a cross-section of a green sea turtle nest/NPS

Though Hurricane Dorian's landfall was on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and produced widespread damage, the storm had relatively little impact to sea turtle nests at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Park staff surveyed the seashore for viable turtle nests prior to the storm and counted 166. After Dorian, they found that most of those nests were still viable.

"Despite the impacts associated with Hurricane Dorian, only approximately 15 percent of all this year's record-breaking 470 nests appear to have been impacted from nest flooding due to overwash," the park reported on Wednesday. "There are still over 75 intact nests remaining along the seashore, and we are already seeing signs of successful hatching."

Records kept by the park staff since 1987 show that sea turtle nest "numbers here have fluctuated greatly in the last 30 years, with the fewest in 1987 at 11 and the peak of 325 in 2016. The number of sea turtle nests laid annually has grown from an average of 77.4 sea turtle nests from 2000-2007 to an average of 192.2 nests from 2008-2016."

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