SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A third straight summer of record nesting
indicates the number of loggerhead sea turtles hatching on
Georgia beaches is rebounding, state wildlife officials said
Thursday. The pronouncement came after 24 years of intensive
efforts to help the federally threatened species recover. “We
can say with a high level of certainty the population is
increasing, which is something we couldn’t say previously,” said
Mark Dodd, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources biologist
who heads the state’s sea turtle recovery program. “We’ve had
some big years previously, but still the overall trend was no
increase in nesting.” Researchers and volunteers counted 2,218
loggerhead nests during the season that runs from May through
August, Dodd said. That shattered the previous records of 1,992
nests counted last year and 1,760 in 2010. What’s most
significant, Dodd said, is that the numbers appear to show an
upward trend in nesting after more than two decades of up-and-
down fluctuations that indicated overal