Disclaimer: No, I didn't write this... my local news channel posted it - I just love turtles!
'Monster' Leatherback Turtle Nests On Hilton Head
POSTED: 4:01 pm EDT May 10, 2006
HILTON HEAD, S.C. -- 'Monster' leatherback turtle nests on Hilton Head
(AP) - A six-foot leatherback sea turtle weighing nearly one-thousand pounds built a nest just north of the Marriott Oceanfront Resort on Hilton Head Island Sunday. The state Department of Natural Resources says only six leatherback nests have been recorded on South Carolina beaches in the last ten years. They're also on the federal endangered species list. The turtle's 77-inch-wide tracks led up the beach and into a midlevel dune, where it dug a nest sometime before dawn Sunday. Leatherbacks build six to nine nests per season and lay about 80 fertilized eggs the size of billiard balls.
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