Tracking sea turtles is a long, slow process that just might keep them alive

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and WABE , Atlanta’s NPR station.

In the middle of a steamy July night on the Wassaw Island beach, near Savannah, Georgia, volunteer Gabi Steinbach plunged her arm shoulder-deep in the sand to reach a loggerhead sea turtle nest that hatched five days before. She pulled out the remaining eggshells, and fellow volunteer Sheri Pittman sorted and counted them by the light of the moon and a red-tinted headlamp. Some fragments are too small to count, but Pittman uses the larger pieces to determine how many hatchlings made it out of this nest.

“Any eggshell that is over 50 percent counts as a hatched egg,” explained Kristen Zemaitis, who directed a team of volunteers with the Caretta Research Project. The team also investi