A small seaplane flies circles around a skinny strip of land more than 20 miles off the Louisiana coast as two of its passengers scan the sand below for promising tracks.
Keri Lejeune and Todd Baker shout out when they spot them. Lejeune, the state’s herpetologist, and Baker, a project manager with the state’s coastal authority, are on the hunt for “crawls,” evidence that endangered and vulnerable turtle species are nesting on the disappearing Chandeleur Islands.
Every week during the turtle’s summer nesting season, state officials involved in the project to restore the iconic barrier islands fly out on the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ seaplane for a survey of the area. The scientists document any evidence of new crawls and, if weather permits, wade out onto the islands for a close-up look.
This year, they’ve found the most crawls they’ve seen since the turtle surveys started in 2022. In the earlier hours of August 22 alone, they spotted one new path and three others they had already identified.
A loggerhead turtle “crawl” as seen on South Chandeleur Island August 22, 2025. The imprints in the sand show that a female loggerhead turtle, a vulnerable species, trekked along the island in an attempt to hatch her eggs.
BY JOSIE ABUGOV | Staff writer
“You see all the diversity that the island provides,” Lejeune said over her aircraft headphones. “It’s off the charts — the seagrasses, the crustaceans. Everything feeds on everything.”
Part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, established by Teddy Roosevelt at the dawn of the 20th century, the Chandeleur Islands are a rich ecosystem of plants and animals deemed of greatest conservation need. They include the last remaining brown pelican colony on the chain, a Chandeleur-specific hybrid gull and the only marine seagrass in Louisiana. Over 170 bird species have been identified in a single year, including more than three dozen in need of conservation.
In 2022, scientists first confirmed nesting by Kemp’s Ridley turtles, one of the most endangered sea turtle species in the world. The findings prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct a two-year survey of the entire Louisiana coastline for turtle nesting. The federal agency found that almost all of it is happening on the Chandeleurs, lending even greater significance to the island chain, said Dianne Ingram, a restoration biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
But that is only part of the story. The tiny, rare turtles making homes here may be even rarer than the scientists first thought.
After three years of analysis, genetic researchers discovered that all of the tested Kemp’s Ridleys found on the Chandeleur Islands have a genetic expression shared with only a tiny fraction of the rest of the endangered turtle species.
“These turtles are distinct genetically,” Lejeune said. “They use these islands for nesting each year. So it’s really critical that these islands get restored.”
But the future of the Chandeleurs is far from guaranteed.
“We’re losing the islands pretty quickly,” said Baker, who is managing the restoration effort for the Chandeleurs.
‘One time shot to do it right’
Over the last two centuries, the islands have lost nearly 90% of their landmass, dwindling and splintering as major hurricanes have accelerated erosion. Hurricane Katrina created the most recent “cut” that divided what was once 25 miles of contiguous land into a South Chandeleur and a North Chandeleur.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill heavily oiled the island chain, harming the varied ecosystem. Models predict that the turtle and bird habitat on the island — though not all of the land itself — would disappear in 10 years, Baker said.
As the islands shrink, it’s not only the natural habitat that withers. The barrier islands also act as a “first line of defense” against powerful storm surge approaching southeast Louisiana, Baker noted.
Michael Chauff, a pilot for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, steps off the seaplane near the Chandeleur Islands on August 22, 2025.
BY JOSIE ABUGOV | Staff writer
The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s plan, which is still in the design phase, will not reverse over 100 years of loss. Instead, the roughly $380 million project will focus on North Chandeleur island, the largest in the chain and the site of the majority of the seagrass.
They’ll be adding dunes, marsh and sand reservoirs, work that will encourage nesting for the animals and help prevent erosion. They’ll also add 145 acres to New Harbor Island, the nearby pelican nesting spot.
In 20 years, the parts of the island slated for restoration are expected to still be home to viable habitat, Baker said. These models factored for damages of one major storm.
But the vast majority of the money to carry out the work has not yet been secured. The state is hopeful that money will soon be approved for the project by trustees overseeing fines and settlement dollars from the 2010 oil spill.
The restoration efforts are a partnership between the coastal agency, the state wildlife and fisheries agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Baker said carrying out the work effectively will be important since significant future maintenance is not in the plans.
“It’s a one-time shot to do it right,” he said.
‘Our big challenge’
The morning of August 22 was bright and clear, which meant the team could spot crawls while flying overhead. Lejeune and Baker could identify the turtle species based on the pattern in the sand. The one they spotted on South Chandeleur Island that day came from a loggerhead, a large and vulnerable species that typically nests later in the summer.
The dense tracks in the sand practically looked like footprints, though faint tail markings indicated a nonhuman traveler. As Baker retraced the path after wading on to the island, he pointed out multiple “body pits” imprinted in the sand. These were the places that the female turtle “debated” settling down and hatching her eggs.
A couple were in lower lying spots, but one was on a higher elevation. And it was on the higher elevation dune that she had actually hatched her eggs.
Natalie Gerald, an undergraduate student worker at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, speaks to Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority project managers Jessica Diez and Todd Baker on August 22 during a turtle survey on the Chandeleur Islands.
BY JOSIE ABUGOV | Staff writer
When state officials began designing the restoration project, they incorporated this kind of data into their plan.
“We sent our surveyors back out to those successful nests and they got slopes, elevations, all the measurables we could get on where she selected, and that was used in our design for the restoration project,” Baker said. “That’s why it’s a little different than a typical barrier island restoration. We are targeting what the birds and the turtles are telling us they prefer.”
While the restoration aims to encourage habitat on the island, it’s also inevitably going to disturb the nesting birds and turtles, Baker said. The federal wildlife agency offered its expertise on how to move forward with the restoration while minimizing the impact of the nesting species.
“That’s going to be our big challenge,” Baker said.