We're Back!!

Apologies to all our readers for our prolonged silence... with various staff changes and new projects going on the blog posting has suffered dramatically but we have still continued all of the turtle monitoring activities even if we have been silent!

We now have two new dedicated staff members, Vanessa Dodin and Nella Victor and as both are nuts about turtles you should be hearing from them regularly from now on.... So a first post from Vanessa:

I LOVE TURTLES.... its official!

Hi there, my name is Vanessa Didon, I’m new and OMG........I seriously think I’ve got the best job in the world right now!! Conducting the turtle walks is my favourite task, having just started this interesting job with MCSS, I’ve been to around a dozen turtle walks already, each time with much anticipation, wondering what I will find along the way, wishing so much to encounter some turtles or even signs that they’ve been around!

Georgia, Simon & Vanessa stand above an erosion cliff on South Mahe

 So far, we have discovered one nest on Anse Cachee  and came across two turtle tracks, one belonging to a green turtle at Grand Police and the other for a Hawksbill turtle at Anse Corail. Unfortunately neither of them had laid due to some obstacles along the way, like erosion cliffs and hard soil. The track at Anse Corail was so fresh when found on Monday, it seemed like we had missed encountering the turtle by less than an hour!!  

Anyway, walking along some of the beaches, it’s an eye sore to see how much rubbish are is left behind usually after picnics or simply washed ashore from other places.......COME ON PEOPLE!! How hard can it be to put your rubbish in the bins. Some of those this rubbish can be very harmful for the turtles, as they can for example mistake it for food and choke on the it. So, no way am I going to walk away from the beaches without doing some cleaning up....... Yup....let’s fill up the bin bags!!

Yup... the black bin-bags are out!

It is my utmost responsibility and intention to help in the conservation of all marine Life.... especially my very best animal in the whole wide world......the Turtles......  I take pride in myself and my organisation when people ask me this question during the walks... “What are you doing?”......... of course I proudly answer.....”patrolling the beaches to monitor any turtle related activities”.......and in  my mind....”help to protect the turtles ...but if you’re a bad person towards turtles....BEWARE... I’ve got my eyes on you!”