Baldwin's Belle

SCDNR Nesting Female Satellite Telemetry Project

A project of SCDNR Marine Turtle Conservation Program.

click map for full-size version

Full-Size Map (155KB)
Zoom Map (52KB)

Species: Loggerhead
Life Stage: Adult
Gender: Female
Release Date: 2003-07-08 00:09:00
Release Location: Cape Island, South Carolina
Last Location: 2004-05-09 00:00:00

Adoptive Parents:
Carol & Bill Taylor
Lila Grace & Claire Parham

Background

Baldwin’s Belle is named for Bill Baldwin. William P. Baldwin, Jr. was a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Junior Refuge Manager at Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge in the late 1930’s. With almost no background literature to guide him, he conducted (along with John Lofton) one of the most complete and excellent natural history studies on nesting loggerhead turtles on Cape Island. This work was the beginning of marine turtle research in the Americas. It was being prepared for publication when World War II began and as a result of the war, it was put aside. David Caldwell later published “The Loggerhead Turtles of Cape Romain, South Carolina” as an abridged and annotated manuscript in 1959. Bill Baldwin went on to become the chief biologist for the southeast refuge system and later made a career selling historic coastal plantations to conservation buyers.