Some of the most intriguing creatures that share the Outer Banks with residents and visitors are sea turtles, although the aquarium in Manteo is the most common way to get a glimpse at them.

But thousands of the huge reptiles swim back and forth in ocean and sound waters off the Outer Banks, and hundreds build nests every summer on barrier island beaches. Sometimes, the huge animals get in trouble and show up injured, cold-stunned or dead on the beach, also known as stranding. Or baby turtles lose their way after hatching, struggling to find the ocean or getting eaten by predators on the way,

48-72 hours after the last hatchling emerges, volunteers excavate the nest and classify shells in separate rows for broken, whole or pipped shells (with initial hatching cracks).

Nearly 20 years ago, the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (N.E.S.T.) was founded on the Outer Banks to help protect and preserve the habitat and migration routes of the sea turtles that visit our shores from Corolla to Oregon Inlet. The non-profit volunteer group is permitted by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to monitor sea turtle activity on the northern Outer Banks, but the organization also works closely with the National Park Service turtle management program within Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

“We divide our activities into stranding response, nesting response, and nest sitting and rehab,” said Karen Clark, program coordinator for the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education and a scientific advisor for N.E.S.T. Clark said that over the years, the group has grown substantially, in both the number of volunteers – about 200 are trained annually – and the number of nests and turtles.

A new nest gets marked off by first responders after being found during morning ATV beach drives.

“Historically, we used to say if we broke 10 nests, that was a great year,” she said. “But we’ve had record-breaking years in 2011 and 2012.” In 2012, N.E.S.T. volunteers recorded 26 nests on the northern Outer Banks; in 2011, there were 19. All except one were loggerheads, which are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The increased number of sea turtle nests was a trend nationwide, Clark said, and no one is sure why. But in 2013, the numbers were back down, likely because of the unusually cold water in the spring and summer.

Trend or not, there is no doubt that whatever number of sea turtles populate the Outer Banks beaches and waters, they are much better protected thanks to the hard work of N.E.S.T. volunteers. Volunteers also serve as educators who are dedicated to going to schools to teach students about the fascinating creatures and help people understand the importance of sea turtles to the ecological balance of the coastal marine life.

Founded in 1995 by Millie Overman, N.E.S.T has come a long way from nursing the turtles back to health in the bathtubs of volunteers. Back then, Overman had to transport a sick loggerhead to Sea World in Orlando, Florida to get the care it needed. It was there that Overman learned that sick and injured turtles could actually be rehabilitated. When the rehabilitated turtle was transported the following year to Ocracoke and released into its natural habitat, the quest to establish a rehabilitation facility on the Outer Banks was reinforced.

Initially, the rehab facility here was a primitive area enclosed by lattice work and protected with tarps with about 10 volunteers nursing the turtles before and after their day jobs. Soon a more permanent facility was built with funds donated by the Outer Banks Community Foundation.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Roanoke Island, as well as the other two coastal aquariums, today have much more sophisticated treatment rooms where cold-stunned, injured and weak turtles can be taken by N.E.S.T. volunteers. Akin to a turtle hospital, the rehab areas are humid and warm. Depending on their size and condition, turtles are put in various sized tanks and containers. Aquarists and trained technicians continually check the turtles’ vital signs and keep tabs on their appetite.

Most of the turtles that are encountered on the Outer Banks are loggerheads, which range from 80 to 300 pounds and mature at about 30 years. The sea turtles migrate north in the spring and head south in the fall. A few Kemp’s ridley, greens and leatherbacks will also occasionally show up here.

In the colder months, volunteers patrol the beaches looking for cold-stunned turtles. But one of the most important tasks the N.E.S.T. volunteers do is guarding the hatchlings as they make their critical voyage from their nest to the sea, when their lives are most at risk. The nesting months from May through August are the most vulnerable time in a sea turtle’s life. Once the mother sea turtle lays her eggs in the sand, she considers her job complete. Since she does not stick around to look after her little darlings, the job often falls to human volunteers, who typically spend all night –the most common time for the eggs to hatch – watching for hatchlings to “boil” out of the nest.

A volunteer at a newly laid nest finds the first egg, which will be sent away for DNA sampling. DNA testing will reveal if a mother turtle has laid nests in previous years and where.

Clark said that volunteers start nest patrols on May 1, keeping records of where nests are located. The so-called “crawl patrol” uses an ATV to cover five different routes between Nags Head and Corolla at sunrise to look for evidence of where the mother crawled to make a nest. Once hatching is imminent, the nest sitting will begin. When the hatchlings emerge, volunteers have to keep an eagle-eye out for ghost crabs who love to kidnap the babies as they scramble out of the nest.

“One of the biggest jobs of a nest sitter,” Clark said, “is a crab-shooer. I try to remind our volunteers why mom has 100 eggs in the nest.” In general, she said, only about one in 100 hatchlings makes it to their Gulf Stream destination after two days of swimming. And only one in 1,000 survives into adulthood.

Volunteers also speak with nearby property owners about keeping their porch lights dimmed and other lights diverted from the beach so that the hatchlings are not misguided to the brightness. Last year, Clark said, someone called the hotline to report that about 30 hatchlings had lost their way and were scattered under a house. The hatchlings were re-located so they could make their way from the nest to the ocean.

Clark said that biologists have learned that the first voyage serves to imprint the location, so that if a female turtle survives to adulthood and breeds, she will be likely to return 35 or so years later to those same familiar beaches.

“Our N.E.S.T. volunteers are fantastic,” she said, “to make sure that each and every one of them has that fighting chance to get off into the water.” ■

Turtle Rehab Update

The Grand Opening for the new Sea Turtle Assistance and Rehabilitation (STAR) Center is scheduled for June 27, 2014 at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. At press time, the Center anticipated that it would be fully functioning with sea turtles in residence for the summer. The 3,000 square-foot facility will work side-by-side with N.E.S.T., the aquarium’s partner. By providing a behind-the-scenes look at sea turtle care and rehabilitation, the aquarium hopes to ensure a better understanding of the importance of sea turtles to the ocean’s ecosystem and support a successful recovery plan for marine reptiles worldwide. The STAR facility features a viewing area giving aquarium visitors the opportunity to observe sea turtle rehabilitation in progress.  A treatment room with a viewing window provides a glimpse into rehabilitation procedures, which focuses on individual animals.