The Kiawah Island Turtle Patrol, which is sponsored by the Town of Kiawah Island, along with the Kiawah Island Community Association, and Seabrook Island Green Space Conservancy, hopes you will help support a project vitally important to our efforts to protect our much-loved sea turtles. The Northern Recovery Unit Loggerhead DNA Project, headed by Dr. Brian Shamblin from the University of Georgia, is an exciting research effort that has been underway for more than a decade and covers all the turtle nests in North Carolina, South Carolina, and several beaches in northern Florida.

Researchers at the Northern Recovery Unit extract maternal DNA from loggerhead eggs provided by our patrols to identify the individual female associated with each nest and develop a census of the nesting population. This research has identified over 10,000 individual females by egg samples taken from every single nest laid during a nesting season. Since this is a multi-state approach, we are learning invaluable information about loggerhead nesting patterns along 1,000 miles of the southeast coastline. You will be interested to know that since 2017, Kiawah Island has the densest nesting beach of all the developed islands in South Carolina!

In the past, this project has been fully funded by a federal grant; however, this is no longer the case. The project is now dependent on state grants and individual donations to remain in operation. We need your help by October 1, to ensure the continuation of this important project.

Please consider donating today! As a registered 501(c)(3), the Kiawah Conservancy is collecting funds on our behalf – 100% of the funds collected will be transferred to the Northern Recovery Unit Loggerhead DNA Project. Please make your tax-deductible donation today either online at or via mail to

Kiawah Conservancy
80 Kestrel Court
Kiawah Island, SC 29455

Please make checks payable to the Kiawah Conservancy and note “Sea Turtle Research” in the memo line. Thank you so much for your support!