If they don't return to the ocean, after a time they will die of dehydration. Even rarer are the small kemp ridley sea turtles. State and federal laws protect the turtles and their nests. It is unlawful to disturb a turtle nest, and even the state's staff and volunteers have to be permitted to get close enough to count eggs. Also, shrimp trawlers are mandated to install turtle excluder devices with larger apertures in their nets to allow turtles to escape from entrapment within the nets.
Turtles drown if they're caught in shrimping nets for extended periods of time.
When volunteers find a nest, they determine if it is threatened and either put fencing around it or relocate the eggs to a hatchery operated by the the University of South Carolina, Beaufort's Pritchards Island Center for Coastal Ecology. A boat ferries staff and volunteers from southern Fripp Island to Pritchards Island. During the nesting season, part-time staff, like Sill, stay on the island. You're protected from normal society. There's no pavement, no television.