A large female loggerhead stranded on top of the rock wall at Station 9 on July 28, an unusual place to land (Credit: Margaret Olive)
Sea turtles nest from May to August, and their nests mostly hatch from July through September. But they can wash ashore, or “strand,” during almost any month of the year.
Three members of the Island Turtle Team also hold permits from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to serve as members of the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network, part of a multi-regional network coordinated by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Locally, the team responds to any sea turtle that strands on the Isle of Palms or Sullivan’s Island.
The majority of stranded sea turtles are dead, with boat propeller strikes being the most common cause. During one recent season, Sullivan’s Island had the highest number of strandings in South Carolina — likely due to its proximity to boat traffic in Charleston Harbor. Other hot spots for strandings include areas of the Grand Strand and Hilton Head.
When the team receives a stranding call from SCDNR, volunteers on patrol, or other citizens, members are required to conduct a complete examination, taking detailed photos, GPS coordinates, measurements, and scanning for embedded chips or external metal flipper tags. The information is submitted to the network online and emailed to the SCDNR Marine Turtle Network locally.
After documentation, the carcass is marked with bright orange paint to indicate it was reported. Smaller turtles are buried by volunteers, while large ones are buried using heavy equipment by Sullivan’s Island Fire and Rescue or Isle of Palms Public Works.
If a turtle is still alive, it is transported to the medical facility at the South Carolina Aquarium for treatment. This can happen even in January, when turtles that failed to migrate to warmer waters become debilitated from “cold stunning” — a condition in which their bodies cannot function in cold winter water. Cold-blooded reptiles take on the temperature of their surroundings, and this can be fatal.
Sometimes, volunteers participate in a relay when a turtle is being transported to Charleston from another part of the South Carolina coast. This can be stressful when the patient is in critical condition and requires careful handling.
So far in 2025, the team has completed stranding reports on 21 turtles, including 11 green sea turtles — three of which were alive and transported to the aquarium. One live Kemp’s ridley turtle required fishhook removal. There have also been five loggerhead strandings and five Kemp’s ridleys overall. Two of the small green turtles were cold-stunned in Wild Dunes in January. They were named Snowdrop and Dandelion, both of which recovered and were released.
Causes for these strandings include boat strikes for 12 turtles, shark attacks for two, fishhook ingestion for one, cold stunning for two, and unknown causes for five due to either no apparent injuries or advanced decomposition.
Although this aspect of volunteering is often sad, it can also be interesting and rewarding to be part of a network that plays an important role in sea turtle conservation and research.