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  • 4 months ago
What began back in June with terrapins burying their eggs in the sand is now coming full circle. Tiny hatchlings are breaking free-timed perfectly with the weather.
Transcript
00:00What began back in June with terrapins burying their eggs in the sand is now coming full circle.
00:05Tiny hatchlings are breaking free, timed perfectly with the weather.
00:09We had a very cool beginning of June and nesting was a little bit off in the beginning.
00:15The girls that did come up and drop those first nest, those nests took a little bit longer to incubate.
00:20Terrapin eggs rely on the sun as a natural incubator, needing 60 to 90 days of steady warmth to develop.
00:26And this summer, the turning point came in July.
00:28Fortunately, the weather heated up. We didn't have much rain. We didn't have many clouds.
00:33So those nests were really cooking. We came back third week of August and everything started hatching.
00:39That meant hundreds of hatchlings were ready for release, some carefully guided by volunteers.
00:44Others sent off with the help of families and children eager to see them begin their journey.
00:49We make sure there is not a hatchling that's going to scurry across this road on its own.
00:53We also have a certain number that we do have the community help us release.
00:58And then we also tuck a good number of them in ourselves.
01:01The young turtles spend their first few years close to shore before venturing into deeper waters as adults.
01:07That's why they're released into the bay nearby.
01:10If they were small and they were out there, they would freeze to death.
01:12So they have to stay in these little areas here for the first four years.
01:15It's a cycle that repeats each summer when females return to lay the next generation of eggs.
01:21And the females will start doing this all over again at the end of May, beginning of June.
01:25And we go again and again and again.
01:27For Anki Weather, I'm Allie Reed.
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