Monday, April 24, 2017

Introducing the interns........


Arrival of the Rookies...........

Hello everyone, the first rookie is here!My name is Emiel, I am a Belgian master student of the EMBC+ program (International Master in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation) and I am doing my two-month internship here in the Seychelles with MCSS.
The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane, even before being able to admire the beauty of the island, was the crushing heat. As a real Belgian I am used to the cold and wet climate of Northern Europe and I thought the warm tropical climate of the Seychelles would be a welcome change… It really was after a few days, but I spend my first day on the island looking for shade and water.  Even when I went for a swim I found the water to be too warm to be refreshing and when I noticed I had no air conditioner yet in my room I was sure I was going to die that night.
Luckily, I did wake up the next day because it was a great day, just as all the days that followed after that! I was greeted warmly (so much warmth everywhere!) by all the staff, they are amazing people, and by the fresh AC in the office (heaven on earth!). After settling in I was immediately invited to dig up a nest that hatched the day before. It was the last nest on the beach, lucky me! We dug up the nest and found still a few baby turtles stuck while crawling out of the nest. After counting the eggs, we released them in the sea.The next day, my rookie buddy Tarek Bakkar arrived at the center. We spend the day monitoring beaches to look for turtle tracks and potential nests. These are only for the Green Turtle though as they nest year-round and the nesting season of the Hawksbill Turtle is over. Because of this there is not a lot of work for the turtle monitoring program so we help wherever we can with the other projects. Thursday, we cleared as much of the invasive Water Hyacinth as we could get out of an important Terrapin pond and set out some traps in some wetlands for Terrapin monitoring. Friday, we went to an extremely interesting symposium about Coral Reef resilience and rehabilitation with free food and drinks (that is always the best part). Overall, we had a very cool and  very instructive week and we are excited what the next 2 months will bring!


Emiel & Tarek deciding between the wetland & the sea!
Hey guys, my name is Tarek Bakkar and I am a Marine Biodiversity and Conservation Student (EMBC) from Germany doing an internship at MCSS for the next two month. I am participating in the turtle monitoring team. On my first day, we patrolled several beaches in the south of Mahé. Most beaches were very quiet in terms of anthropogenic disturbances as well as turtle tracks. Nevertheless, we found one Green Turtle track on the Grand Police Beach. Next to the vegetation we could find traces of sand disturbance but the female turtle did not seem to be happy with the location and went back to the ocean without laying any eggs.

My adventure just started and I am looking forward to the next month making new experience, see hopefully a lot of turtles and other wild life. I will keep you updated!

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Turtle Nesting Season Update

Hi all..... it's been a while since our last blog.... Volunteers are out of sight....Turtles are out of sight & all is quite!

For this nesting season we have observed and recorded 394 turtle emergence and 176 nests....still a good number but definitely lower compared to the last nesting season.

We encountered our last turtle on the 13th of March... which is usually a bit late to have encounters but still always a delight to see the beautiful females nesting..... actually this particular female was encountered for the first time on January 13th on the same beach.
Shooting some last shots of the turtle
Heading back safely to sea

Fresh turtle track
With regards to poaching incidents...there is a significant decrease in the number of poached turtles recorded....and sadly number 3 was recorded over 3 weeks ago. While patrolling Anse Bazarca...to my excitement I noticed the fresh turtle track on the beach and followed it up with caution.... I saw egg chamber 1 abandoned..... egg chamber 2 almost done...but.... the turtle seemed to have vanished into thin air!..... 

We searched everywhere in the bushes and no sign of a down track! The only apparent track were footprints and car Tyre marks close to where the turtle was..... after all the denials in my head and searching crazy for the turtle...I finally came to the obvious conclusion that the turtle had been poached!..... a beautiful up-track on the beach was all I had left from the beautiful Hawksbill turtle who had fallen victim to men's cruelty...

Abandoned egg chamber due to human interference
Anyway...April is here and soon we are expecting new students coming to join us for their internship with MCSS..... so stay tuned for some more updates from the rookies!