Author: Matthew Humphrey

By Nicole Thomas,
GSTC Education Program Manager

As we settle into winter, the Georgia Sea Turtle Center (GSTC) Education team is looking forward to summer Wildlife and Ecology tours. Our favorites: Evening Turtle Walks and Sunrise Walks. From June to July, there is nothing more exciting than the chance to take our patrons out on the beach, tingling with anticipation, to possibly see a nesting Loggerhead sea turtle. Thanks to the vast number of video-streaming services, learning about sea turtle lifecycles and conservation is readily accessible from the comfort of your home. But there is no replacement for seeing the nesting process in person. It is impossible to fully appreciate the size of these mamas or the magnitude each nest holds for the species’ survival and recovery. While it is never a guarantee to witness such a magical event, Evening Turtle Walks are always a memorable experience.

In August, Sunrise Walks replace evening tours as nighttime activity winds down. Jekyll Island’s loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings, the size of your palm, make their way from sand to sea. Sunrise Walk guests often have the opportunity to watch a nest inventory. As nests are emptied of their turtle treasures, nest inventories are performed to collect vital information used to track our progress towards state and federal recovery goals. What might have been hours of labor by a female sea turtle, is dug from the sand within a matter of minutes by a permitted sea turtle researcher. The contents of the nest are documented with care and usually consists of empty shells and/or unhatched eggs. Every so often a straggler hatchling is pulled up among the debris. Guests and GSTC Staff alike are captivated watching a hatchling’s second chance to scuttle down the sand and through the breaking waves. It is a moment like no other as we stand side-by-side, softly offering words of encouragement and waving goodbye as a young turtle slips from our view headed for the horizon.

Living in the moment and experiencing conservation first-hand is an unforgettable experience. The GSTC Education team eagerly looks forward to sharing their time and passion with all our visitors, but we especially love those special summer nights and mornings.   

Check the GSTC Website for current and future Wildlife and Ecology Tours.

To support the ongoing work of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, visit jekyllislandfoundation.org/donate and add “GSTC” into the comments.

By Ben Carswell,
JIA Director of Conservation

Most wild animals, especially those that make their homes on land, need to move about in order to make a living, survive, and thrive. Some animal movements span very short distances, while others roam many acres or even migrate across whole regions of the Earth.

The concept of “wildlife corridors” is a hot topic in the conservation field because habitats with well-connected natural features, such as forests, grasslands, or waterways, better sustain diverse wild animal populations than those than are fragmented by unnatural features such as roads, parking lots, or manicured turf grass. Unfortunately, this idea is sometimes poorly explained and consequently, misunderstood.

Effective wildlife corridors do not simply allow for unobstructed movement – most animals are of course theoretically capable of crossing a road, parking lot, or a golf course fairway. Rather, what makes a wildlife corridor is not just its ability to physically accommodate movement, but also to safely meet the other needs of wild animals while they are on the move.

Imagine yourself surviving primitively in the wilderness. How would you move? Why? And what would you need from the landscape to help you do so? You probably would not choose to swim across a pond with alligators in it, even if you theoretically could. Like us, wild animals aim to avoid being preyed upon. For prey species, this often means avoiding moving through landscapes where they cannot easily hide, like a golf course fairway. When you travel across the state or the region, you may choose your route based on a familiar stop with a restaurant you’ve enjoyed. Likewise, effective wildlife corridors need to provide forage and prey. Put simply, wildlife corridors are strips of functional wildlife habitat connecting other, larger habitats.

All sorts of wild animals on Jekyll Island benefit when their habitats are connected, from small mammals like mice, rabbits, and mink to larger fauna like bobcats. The movements of many snake species are especially constrained by developed landscapes.

Wildlife corridors can also provide excellent opportunities for us to view wild animals on the wing, such as birds and butterflies, or to photograph secretive or nocturnal creatures. These corridors don’t need to be purely natural – they can be designed, engineered, and managed landscapes that accommodate other infrastructure – provided they meet the habitat needs of the local wildlife community. Powerline rights-of-way, for example, can be excellent wildlife corridors if managed appropriately.

The phrase “habitat connectivity” is used by wildlife professionals and describes the benefit achieved by protecting or creating wildlife corridors. The importance of habitat connectivity and wildlife movement are emphasized in the newly updated Jekyll Island Conservation Plan.

You can help! The Jekyll Island Authority offers many opportunities for public input from townhall-style Q&A sessions to formal planning projects. Through these opportunities, you can voice your support for plans and decisions that make Jekyll Island the best it can be as a home for wildlife.

By Michael Scott, Director of Historic Resources
Research provided by Andrea Marroquin, JIA Museum Curator

While talk about the Jekyll Island Club era often revolves around the Club members and guests, there is an entire other side to the club’s history – a side that prepared the meals, stocked the game, maintained the lawns and spent their time at the Jekyll Island Club not in a state of leisure, but in labor. A group of people that were here in the service of others. Thanks to the dedication of descendants, researchers, and volunteers, JIA Historic Resources staff can connect stories and families, and tell the history of the people who made Jekyll such a haven for Club members.

By the 1930s, over 77% of Club employees were African American. Of those employees, Charlie Hill was at the heart of their working world of relationships. Hill, the oldest of the original employees of the Jekyll Island Club, brought the first group of millionaires to the Jekyll by way of a rowboat to inspect the island for possible purchase. Hill worked as an island employee for 51 years – almost exclusively for the Maurice family of Hollybourne Cottage. Angie Hill, Charlie Hill’s wife, was a laundress for the Maurice family and their daughter, Anna, became the schoolteacher for the African American children living on the island.

Other local workers consisting of an extended network of friends and family, were also hired to work at the Jekyll Island Club through Charlie Hill’s connections. His nephew Ray remembered, “We were mostly related by blood or marriage on Jekyll Island. The Hills were pretty much the linking family. They either married into other Jekyll families while on the island or had married into them before they arrived on Jekyll.”

A large number of the Club staff’s descendants still live in the area today and have been an invaluable resource to the Museum, providing information about Club members, landscaping, the appearance of the buildings, and life in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Stop by the Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum in February and learn about Charlie Hill, his family, and their many contributions to the island’s history. Every Saturday and Sunday in February a special 90-minute tour – In the Service of Others – is your chance to walk through some of the spaces where Charlie and his relations worked and built a community legacy, and explore the lives of the men and women who worked behind the scenes to keep the Jekyll Island Club running. Click HERE to purchase tickets online.

The Mosaic Museum is open daily 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. For more information, call Mosaic Guest Services at (912) 635-4036.