Breaking records with GVI

Since her turtle talk with volunteers of Global Vision Internal (GVI), Elke has been taking GVI volunteers on beach patrols as part of the awareness raising campaign under the MCSS project on “Conservation of turtle rookeries on the developed island of Mahé through increased public awareness and community involvement.” funded by Mangroves for the Future.

To date, 18 volunteers have joined in beach patrols with a number a turtle records being broken.

Brendan Galloway proved that he was NOT an American Superpower after all, when a Hawksbill turtle showed him just how strong Seychellois girls could be! His buddy Vincent Vandergheynst filmed the whole thing! It took over 3 minutes for Brendan to restrain the turtle and in the end Elke only deployed one tag and had to forgo measuring, as she was feeling sorry for the poor turtle.

Proof that turtles are stronger than Americans, photo Vincent Vandergheynst.

Edvan Loh and Yvonne Phillips met the stupidest turtle of the season, who nested on Anse Forbans. She laid her 158 eggs in the open, mid-beach and near a busy road. Being clearly visible from the road, she drew quite a crowd which Elke kept at bay, armed with her recently laminated Turtle Watchers Code of Conduct.

Turtle tortures conservationist by nesting mid beach on a hot, humid day, photo Elke Talma.

Kevin Jackson and Jill Howell had the highest number of turtle tracks recorded to date during the 2009-10 Season, with 20 tracks in total being recorded on a single day.

And last but not least, after 5 years of monitoring Elke finally managed to get a shot of two turtles emerging at the same time! Curtis and Richard Horne were there to enjoy the experience and while they watched one turtle, Elke dealt with the other before coming over to tag their turtle.

In five years of monitoring, this is the 3rd time that Elke has seen two turtles on the same beach at the same time, photo Elke Talma.

Maritime School joins in turtle conservation effort

Year 1 students from the Advanced Fisheries class at the Maritime Training Centre joined Elke on the beach for a half day Clean-up activity. The field trip was organised by their Marine Organism lecturer, Vanessa Zialor, who being a local plankton taxonomy expert, has been assisting MCSS for a number of years with their whale shark monitoring programme.

Shareefa Cadeau instructing her class mates about the Turtle Watchers Code of Conduct from the MCSS “mobile class room”, photo Elke Talma.

After a short briefing about turtles, the team of 13 students, 2 Environment officials, Vanessa and Elke began collecting rubbish while hoping desperately to see a nesting turtle - none showed up! They were, however, unexpectedly rewarded with some Hawksbill hatchlings, found while collecting rubbish in the bushes. The nest had hatched a few days ago, with hatchlings emerging from the sand the night before.

For reasons yet to be determined, most of the hatchlings headed inland, despite no obvious signs of light pollution on the deserted beach, with many being killed by a picky predator with a taste for turtle brains!

Grey matter, a tasty snack for some! photo Elke Talma.

Fifty seven dead hatchlings were collected from the bush and of the 28 live hatchlings found, only 22 made it safely to the sea, with the other 6 dying from their head injuries.

Rubbish collecting abandoned while MTC students enjoyed their first hatchling encounter, photo Vanessa Zialor.

A total of 100kg of rubbish was collected from the beach, making the beach just that little bit safer for hatchlings and their nesting mothers.

From left to right, Samia Meme, Shareefa Cadeau, Yannick Chang-Tive, Maritza Jeannie and Trevor Vidot proudly show off their bounty, photo Elke Talma.

After a hard morning on the beach, many complaining about the heat and lack of shade, the students settled on a neighbouring beach for a well deserved lunch in the shade.

Students taking a well deserved break, photo Elke Talma.

A parting gift for Claire, MCSS style!

Turtle hatchlings, a welcome surprise after a long walk, photo Elke Talma

MCSS would like to extend a well deserved “thank you” to Claire Jean of Kelonia for joining us in Seychelles and presenting her project on photo-Identification of turtles in two local workshops entitled “Using images to help conserve endangered marine animals”.

During her time in Seychelles, Claire spent a few days with Nature Seychelles, under the Seychelles/Reunion regional corporation agreement, showing the rangers of the Cousin Nature Reserve how to deploy nest temperature logger. While on Cousin, she saw more than 5 nesting turtles!

With the limited nesting population on the developed island of Mahe, due to over-exploitation, poaching and loss of nesting habitats, MCSS could not compete…or could we?

Not to be outdone, Elke invited Claire and some of her friends on a turtle patrol in the South of Mahe and managed to surprise them with some Hawksbill hatchlings - 198 in total and a first for Claire!

Claire with her first hawksbill hatchlings, photo Elke Talma

Turtle in a hurry

As a child I remember reading stories about wise old turtles, but wisdom is not an attribute that the turtle always displays! When nesting, a turtle is usually constantly on the lookout for danger and can be very picky about where she will lay her eggs. This was not the case last week for a turtle nesting at Petite Marie Louise.

Now this was not an inexperienced young Turtle, as she had some scratches and damage to her shell suggesting that she had been around a bit. She must have nested many times before, but on that day, she had barely reached the high water mark when she made her first attempt. The sand was of course too damp, and so the nest kept collapsing. She moved on, making two more attempts to nest, with the last attempt being made in the sandy soil, amongst the roots of nearby coconut trees.

Hawksbill turtle nesting amongst the coconut trees, photo Marcel Mathiot.

All the time, she appeared to be in great haste working hard to dig out her nest. The roots of the coconut tree impeded her progress somewhat, until in pity, Marcel reached under her from behind and, out of sight, helped by surreptitiously removing a few of the roots. Obviously she was not wise enough to know that less haste means more speed!

She dug a rather shallow egg chamber and then did not straddle it properly, dropping her eggs, not in the chamber, but on the nest wall where they piled up. Once again, Marcel reached under her and rolled the eggs to where they should have been. She seemed totally oblivious to Marcel’s presence but that was because he kept absolutely quiet and completely out of her line of vision. It also helped that turtles tend to go into a sort of trance and will remain so until they have finished laying.

Eggs piling up along the side, photo Marcel Mathiot.

Having laid her eggs, she spent considerable time covering them and flattening the sand down with her flippers, turning around and around not quite on the spot until satisfied that there was no indication of where the nest actually was. She spent a long time doing this, during which, a young man and his dog came onto the beach. He quickly put on flippers and entered the water, probably to look for octopus.

The dog, however, remained on the beach and although aware of the turtle, was apprehensive of Marcel and so kept its distance. After the turtle had returned safely to sea, Marcel, concerned that the eggs were rather shallowly buried, added more sand and tidied up the nesting site, then he too had to leave.

I wonder why this turtle was in such haste. Maybe she had been thwarted in her previous attempts to lay her eggs and just couldn’t wait any longer.

… News from Pat and Marcel.

Update on turtle activities at Petite Marie Louise

Marcel was quite pleased with his clean up of the beach at Petite Marie Louise, especially as this was followed with a successful turtle nesting. He has been patrolling Petite Marie Louise almost daily, so imagine his concern, when he was told that a turtle had been rescued from a pit above the high water mark there.

He remembered that a while ago someone had actually searched for treasure at Petite Marie Louise, leaving several large holes behind. These holes are well above the high water mark, too far you would think, for a turtle to reach. You’d be wrong!

Turtle struggling to find suitable nesting site in the dense coconut debris, photo Elke Talma

An enterprising turtle did find the hole, but sliding into the hole was obviously easier than climbing out. She probably spent the night there, for when found, she was dirty and exhausted according to the local fisherman who found her. It took some effort to pull her out of the hole and drag her back onto the beach, but she did get safely back to sea. Marcel spent the rest of that afternoon making the pit safe by erecting a barrier to prevent another turtle mishap.

Hole from ex-treasure hunting venture proved to be a trap for unsuspecting turtles, photo Marcel Mathiot

A few days later, he noticed that someone had obviously enjoyed the cleaner beach, in spite of the rain, as they had cut some palm fronds with which to build a shelter. These they left behind, stacked in a neat pile but creating a barrier once again which blocked off access to the turtle nesting places. Marcel removed the barrier!

This beautiful little beach gets a lot of attention for such an isolated spot. Sometimes it is not the right kind of attention. During a routine patrol once more the unexpected happened. While searching the beach for turtle tracks and finding none, conversation and all attention turned towards the pit at the top of the beach. The tale of the unfortunate turtle trapped in the pit was recounted and so the pit was inspected. At first glance there was nothing unusual to be seen and then sharp eyes and keen noses detected more than the presence of palm fronds.

Lying in the pit there were in fact, in excess of a dozen empty jerry cans. Their contents, diesel oil, had been poured away, possibly over the side of a passing fishing boat, and above the pit partly, hidden behind a young palm tree we found a small cache of Turtle and Dolphin meat, salted and ready to be collected by the prospective person or persons. Just as we were feeling good about this turtle season too!

Hawksbill turtle safely making her way into the sea, photo Marcel Mathiot

Sad as this was, there is still much to feel good about, for throughout the local community, there has been a lot more positive interest in the conservation of the turtle. We might be moving forward a tad slowly, but we are going forward and we will succeed.

… News from Pat and Marcel.

Public presentation on photo-ID methods

The Marine Conservation Society Seychelles (MCSS), in collaboration with the Kelonia Marine Turtle Observatory in Reunion, Ministry of Environment and Alliance Francaise, are organising a public presentation on “Using images to help conserve endangered marine life”.

This presentation, which is being held at 17:00 on the 12th November at Alliance Francais, is being organised as one of the public awareness components from the project on “Conservation of turtle rookeries on the developed island of Mahé through increased public awareness and community involvement”, which is being funded by Mangroves for the Future.

........You are all welcome to join us!

Scientific presentation for marine scientists on photo-ID methods

The Marine Conservation Society Seychelles (MCSS), in collaboration with the Kelonia Marine Turtle Observatory in Reunion and Ministry of Environment, are organising a scientific presentation on “Using images to help conserve endangered marine life”.


This workshop, which is being held at 14:00 on the 12th November in the training room at Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is being organised as one of the public awareness components from the project on “Conservation of turtle rookeries on the developed island of Mahé through increased public awareness and community involvement”, which is being funded by Mangroves For the Future.

Space is limited, so if you wish to attend, please contact Elke 261511/713500 or send us an email.