- Cape Hatteras National Seashore has logged four leatherback sea turtle nests this season, the most in any year since monitoring began in the 1980s.
- From 2015 through 2025, the Seashore recorded just four leatherback nests in total; 2026 matched that in a single summer.
- Leatherbacks are the world’s largest turtle and federally endangered, and North Carolina sits near the cold northern edge of their nesting range.
The world’s largest sea turtle just had its best year on record on the Outer Banks – with four leatherback nests in a single season, topping the entire previous decade combined.
Four leatherback nests have been confirmed at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 2026, according to the Seashore’s records – the most in any year since monitoring began in the 1980s.
To put that in perspective: across the 11 years from 2015 through 2025, the park logged just four leatherback nests total. This year matched that in a matter of weeks.
The leatherback is the heavyweight of the turtle world. Adults can stretch past 6 feet and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. They skip the hard shell, sporting leathery, rubbery skin over a flexible frame instead, and dive deeper than any other turtle while chasing jellyfish.
North Carolina’s beaches sit near the cold northern edge of the leatherback’s nesting range, which makes nests here far rarer than in Florida or the Caribbean. The species is listed as endangered.
The giants are riding a busy summer overall. As of June 23, the Seashore had counted 136 nests: 130 loggerhead, four leatherback and two green. This year’s four were split between Ocracoke Island and Hatteras.
For a turtle that nests this far north only a handful of times a decade, four in one summer is a milestone worth watching.
