All about learning and making the most of the school holidays

Hi all .... My name is Shea and I’ve been volunteering at MCSS for about one week so far during my school holidays.  In the mornings I help with the turtle patrols along 5 of the main nesting beaches down at Takamaka which we are currently doing 3 times a week. We have not been as lucky as to see a nesting turtle yet although we’ve spotted a few turtle tracks, where some had managed to actually lay. Hopefully my luck changes before my time here at MCSS comes to an end and I get to see a nesting turtle. 

learning to use the Trimble

digging up a hatched nest for data collection

In my short time here, I’ve got to learn and done things I haven’t done before which to me is a great experience. This morning we dug up a turtle nest from which had already hatched to record the egg clutch survival data.

 It was quite a successful nest where we found 161 hatched eggshells and only 5 rotten ones which is pretty good news. Now that it is nesting season hopefully we’ll start to see more and more turtles coming up the beach to lay or at least get to witness some hatchlings as they emerge from the nest and start their life journey.