The Day of the Turtle

The fifth of January was the first turtle patrol of 2011 and was a fantastic way to start the year which I think will be very hard to beat indeed.

On the way to the first beach of the day, we first have to drive past several of our other ‘priority’ beaches which we are currently monitoring twice a week. As usual I looked out the window of the truck as we went past these beaches to check for any turtle activity. I was very alarmed to notice a fresh looking turtle track with two dogs at the top of it. After we hastily reversed the truck and ran to the beach, we found a disturbing and sadly, fairly regular occurrence. Dogs had been digging up the freshly laid nest of a hawksbill turtle.

Dog tracks following a fresh turtle track was not a good sign... photo Georgia French

As the nest had already been partially dug up (thankfully they had not reached the egg chamber) and was in an area that may be inundated by water during high tide, the decision was made to relocate the nest to higher ground. We counted a very impressive 182 eggs and judging by the track width, this was a pretty big female, in all likelihood over 50 years of age. It would have been a great pity indeed if the dogs had attacked and killed this incredible animal.

Caroline and Leon translocating the eggs to a safer location, photo Georgia French

After successfully relocating the nest, it was off to monitor the rest of the beaches. As soon as we set foot on our second beach of the day we saw a very long track meandering from a relatively low tide line to the beach crest vegetation. A single track – we had a turtle!

A single very long track was a good indication of a turtle still nesting in the vegetation, photo Georgia French

Upon careful closer inspection we determined that the female was still looking for the perfect spot to lay her eggs. As it turned out, it took two hours for this fussy female to choose a good place, dig her nest, lay and cover her eggs. It didn’t help that she managed to get very tangled in some vines when she attempted to return to the sea. After giving her a helping hand, it was a pleasure (and a bit of a relief!) to watch her return safely to the ocean. This female already had tags on both flippers so I could ID her from our tagged turtle data set. It turns out that she was last spotted laying eggs on a completely different beach, just over five years ago! Her carapace has also grown by 2.5cm in that time.

Elated after encountering this turtle we walked right to the other end of the beach where we found something very special indeed...our first hatchling! Most of the other hatchlings had already left the nest judging by the empty egg shells and tiny tracks.

One tired little hatchling was left all alone for the march down the beach, photo Georgia French

That left this little guy to make the trip down the beach by itself, to much enchanted oohing and aahing on our part. It’s very hard not to ‘help’ such a vulnerable looking animal by carrying safely down the beach to the sea but it is important to let them make this journey for themselves.

The hatchling makes it safely down the beach, photo Georgia French

The rest of the beaches yielded only a few tracks and we began to feel a little despondent when it started to rain heavily on our last beach of the day. I looked up, shielding my eyes from the rain and saw what I first took to be a large group of crabs. I wondered why they were all heading towards the sea.....hatchlings!

It was fantastic to see a big group all rushing towards the sea together, needless to say we completely forgot about the rain!

What a fantastic day!

A Turtle Bonanza!

My name is Caroline Baille, I am 21 and I am from France. I am on a master degree of agronomy. I will specialize in marine sciences later on, that’s why, for my internship this year, I wanted to work on protecting marine life, especially on animals like sharks or turtles. I sent a request to MCSS who accepted me on the Turtle Monitoring Program.

I arrived in Seychelles the 3rd of November 2010 and I am here for 3 months. In only 2 weeks, I discovered many things about turtles and about their conservation in Seychelles.

Caroline measuring a nesting hawksbill turtle, photo Devis Monthy

During the day, walking on the beaches looking for turtles tracks is really amazing, especially when we have turtle encounters. After 10 days of turtle patrols, I finally met my first turtles! And it was a very special day because we encountered 5 turtles on the beaches! We observed them, took all the required measures (carapace length,…) or information (time, turtle specie, name of the beach,…) for the research program and finally tagged them before letting them go back to the sea. This is very surprising to see how these animals living in the sea are able to walk on the beach and dig such a deep egg chamber (50cm) with their fins only. This is one of the things that impresses me most about turtles.

The first of the five turtles, nesting on the inshore side of the road, photo Caroline Baille

Turtles are beautiful animals and I understood that their conservation is very important for the ecosystem and fishing activities: I really feel concerned about it and getting involved in this program as a volunteer is the best experience ever for me, I really enjoy it.

More about the five turtles from Project Coordinator Georgia:

We enountered five turtles, the first one was at the first beach we checked and was on the other side of the road to the beach and not easy to see! She had already dug two nests complete with nest chambers but abandoned them for unknown reasons so she must have been really tired.

While we waited with her, a team of landscape surveyors turned up with machetes and equipment which was worrying initially but they turned out to be really interested so we told them about the laws, basic turtle info and about how turtles are poisonous to eat and how they help the environment. They ended up helping to get her back to the sea after she got stuck in some vegetation which was really good of them.

Turtle number 1 heads for the sea after being freed for vegetation, photo Caroline Baille

The second turtle laid at the bottom of an erosion cliff within the tide line so we translocated the eggs, (151 eggs) to the top of the cliff.

The whole team helps dig-out and translocate the eggs from turtle 2; photo Devis Monthy

Turtle no. 3 was on some rocks and while we were making a plan of action she made a break for the sea and we lost her! On the next beach along however, we encountered a turtle just emerging from the sea so it could well have been our friend from the rocks (turtle 4). On the same beach there was also another turtle already nesting (turtle 5).

Devis tagged this one as well as turtle no. 2 and showed us how the equipment worked. I was supposed to tag turtle no. 4 once she finished laying but she already had tags. All turtles were hawksbills. No. 4 also got stuck under some roots and Devis and Mariska helped to free her. Turtle ID photos were taken for all but turtle 3 which made a very speedy escape indeed!

One very clumsy Hawksbill....

Let me introduce myself. I’m Georgia French, Project Coordinator for MCSS. I have been working here for about three months now and been on many turtle patrols but this one proved to be particularly memorable.....

We were headed to Intendence beach for our usual turtle patrol when we got a call from a Banyan Tree Staff member saying that there had been four turtle emergences on the beach that morning and one turtle was still present. This was great news for us as we haven’t caught a turtle on the beach for a little while and we were beginning to miss them!

We arrived to find a large group of tourists that were being managed by Banyan Tree staff standing well back from the nesting turtle. The intervention by the staff was good to see as two of the other emergences that morning had resulted in the turtles being scared back into the sea by unwitting tourists before they could lay their eggs. Thank goodness the staff were present to correctly manage the enthusiastic group for this turtle!

When we checked her laying stage we found that she had not yet begun to dig an egg chamber so we waited about half an hour for her to investigate the area and pick a spot that she was happy with.

Nesting turtle getting tied up in vegetation trying to find the right spot to nest; photo Caroline Baille

Once she had carefully excavated the egg chamber with her back flippers (I love watching this process, you would never think they could use their back flippers so delicately) I lay down behind her so that I could count the number of eggs that she laid. I think that she may have already nested a few times this season as she only laid 93 eggs. While she was laying, her carapace was measured and she was checked for injuries. She seemed to have a very fresh scrape on the back left of her carapace but it wasn’t a serious injury. Once she had finished laying we left her alone to cover her nest and then disguise it by throwing sand around with her front flippers. Unfortunately she managed to get a front flipper AND her neck well and truly stuck under some roots so we had to assist her in leaving the nest site.

On her way back to the sea at last! Photo Caroline Baille

When we knew she was about to head back to sea, we called over a family that had been waiting very patiently to see her return to the ocean. Making sure that they followed the turtle watchers code of conduct and stayed a safe distance away, the family took lots of pictures and were really happy to have witnessed such a rare and beautiful sight.

The happy family takes some photos of the turtle as she heads down the beach; photo Caroline Baille

But, once again, our turtle turned out to be somewhat unlucky. On her way over the rocks at the tideline, she managed to fall straight into a turtle-shaped hole! She was stuck fast with only her rear end and back flippers poking out which looked somewhat amusing but was a situation that required rectifying fast!

Stuck in a perfectly turtle sized hole! Photo Caroline Baille.

Myself and Devis Monthy used the protruding front of her carapace to pull her out of the hole and finally release her back to the sea. By this time there were a large number of spectators who all seemed very pleased to see this mishap prone turtle finish her trip.

Turtle Awareness Poster Challenge

As a part of our on-going turtle conservation programme funded by the Mangroves For the Future initiative, we recently ran a survey about peoples perceptions and knowledge regarding Seychelles turtles. The results were very interesting and one output was a targeted awareness aimed at school children.

Devis Monthy in charge of our turtle monitoring was tasked with implementing the project assisted by Georgia French our MCSS Project Coordinator and as Abi March (one of our whale shark programme team leaders) is both a designer and school teacher, she was asked to lend a hand …Abi was more than happy to assist, provided she could piggy-back some whale shark awareness into the project!

Abi came up with the idea of a short turn-around ‘Poster Challenge’ for four schools…. Who could come up with the best awareness posters in just one week!

This was a pretty tight time-line for the kids as well as the MCSS team but this Saturday it all came together and the kids got to show off what they had achieved at an exhibition at the National Library put together by the team along with information about the MCSS turtle and whale shark programmes.

The Turtle awareness info and posters

The exhibition drew a good crowd of visitors from the schools, with their parents and teachers as well as some coverage from the National Press, and most importantly the posters were brilliant!!!

As part of the prize, the winning entry from each school was to be turned into a T shirt design and all compiled as a set of postcards… The winning entries and had already been turned into a first transfer print of the T shirts, to give the prize winners and orders for more are already flooding in!

The prize winning entries turned into T shirts

You can’t blame them when you see the designs!

First prize - Takamaka Primary School: Kimberley Marie

First prize - Beau Vallon Primary School: Aniella Cherry

Do visit our whale shark blog for more images of the shark oriented posters!

The full list of winners was:

1st Place

Sam Benoiton - International School Seychelles

Kimberley Marie - Takamaka Primary School

Dominic Rene - Anse Royale Secondary School

Aniella Cherry - Beau Vallon Primary School

2nd Place

Wayne Amelie - International School Seychelles

Karlos Bouzin - Takamaka Primary School

Estelle Lepathy - Anse Royale Secondary School

Audrey Matombe - Beau Vallon Primary School

Kimberley wearing her own designed T shirt... in fashionable baggy size with some prompting from Abi!

We will let you all know when the designs are available in their final form… could be a great Christmas present!

First turtle encounter and nest relocation.

On the 24th of September the MCSS office received a phone call to inform us that there was a hawksbill turtle that came up at Anse Marie-Louise. Abi March and Devis Monthy, members of the MCSS crew set off to give a helping hand to the staff of the Anse Forbans Chalet.

They made a very good job of making sure that the turtle was not disturbed and returned back to sea in the best condition… Well the same condition that she was when she come ashore but just a bit lighter.

She tried to make a first nest but to no avail. Fortunately on the second try she was successful.

The MCSS crew arrived there a little too late because she had already gone back, but our trip was not in vain… Where she laid her eggs was not in the best location so it had to be relocated to somewhere closer to the chalets.

Abi and a hotel guest carefully start to excavate the nest to recover the eggs, photo Devis Monthy

She had laid in a quite busy activity area (the middle of the car park!) and without relocation we can safely say that it would not have survived to. A wooden log was placed in front of the nest before we arrived so that no one would park their car there or start a picnic!

Devis with the first load of eggs for relocating, photo Abi March

She had quite a load to release that’s for sure… 182 eggs had been laid. Unfortunately 4 eggs were damaged in our attempt to move the eggs but four is a small loss, compared to 182 if we hadn’t relocated them.

Abi replacing the eggs in the new nest, photo Devis Monthy

So we can say that the relocation was a success, now we have to wait about two months for us to see the fruit of our labor (the turtle and the relocation crew).

Our greatest thanks Brigitte the owner of Anse Forbans chalet, Mrs.Mathiot, and the guest at the chalet. For without their help, their appreciation for this species, we would not have been informed of the turtle emergence and it could have been one more lost nest.

To you all keep, up the good job…

The monitoring continues...

Being the new guy on the block my work as the researcher for MCSS has just started. I was fortunate enough to be starting at the same time volunteers, interns and students were coming in for the whale shark program.

Shane Lucas, a student at the International school Seychelles came to MCSS for his work attachment. He is actually assigned to me, for helping me with the turtle monitoring. It’s been almost a month t hat he is here with me but unfortunately he hasn’t been fortunate enough to encounter a sea turtle on our monitoring beaches.

Well, we at MCSS hope that changes before he leaves us…..

On the more positive side of things, well we were able to see some tracks. By some tracks I mean 6 tracks. That doesn’t sound like much but it’s always a result!

As luck would have it, the first track was that of a green turtle which we encountered on our first monitoring session together.

Fresh tracks during the patrol, photo Shane Lucas.

One of the interns, Mariska Van Geldorp, is also helping us on the track counts that we do, once a week for the moment. That will intensify as the month progresses.

Devis, his brother Mickey and volunteer Mariska on beach patrol, photo Shane Lucas

Unfortunately one of the nests on the monitored beach has a dog problem. That being said, the dog in question has been up to quite a bit of mischief on his own. It has destroyed one nest already. The plan is to try and capture this dog in a manner that doesn’t involve killing it and bring it to a shelter.

So as you can assume not much is happening for the moment concerning the turtles.

As I’m still fresh on the job I haven’t been able to meet or introduce myself to everybody that is involve in the turtle monitoring in the area………. Do not worry or feel left out I will get a chance to meet you and formally introduce myself to you all. Furthermore I wish to thank everybody that has been and still involve in the protection and conservation of these majestic animals.

Wilna's having a rough few days...

With the South East wind really kicking in this last week has been a rough one for Wilna the hawksbill turtle, tagged by MCSS with a satellite tag in December 2009. She had just nested on the South of Mahé when she was fitted with the tag which was a notable experience for the team as this was to be their first nigh-time tagging session (hawksbill turtles generally nest during day-light hours in Seychelles).

The MCSS team fitting Wilna’s tag in the dark, photo Betty Cecile.

Despite the challenge of working in the dark the team successfully deployed the tag which tracked her progress away from her nesting beaches as she headed North East to her foraging ground some 100km from Mahé.

Ever since December, Wilna’s tag has been transmitting daily updates about her position and diving habits until this week when her tag fell silent for two days. After the first day we thought that maybe there was a glitch with the data upload but by the second day we were worried that something had happened to Wilna as the tag’s battery should last for many more months and on checking with the satellite receiver system no messages had been received…

However, on the third day we had a confirmatory signal from the satellite system that Wilna’s tag is still functioning and she is still on her foraging grounds!

Wilna's position on the NE of the Seychelles Plateau

As these tags are very small and hawksbill turtles are fairly small animals, the tag is always very close to the water even when the turtle is resting on the surface. We suspect that with the rough sea conditions over the last few days the tag has simply not been able to transmit as even when the turtle is breathing it was likely to be too rough, keeping the tag semi-submerge all the time.

The satellite tag is very small and easily submerged in rough conditions, photo Elke Talma

So all is well… we just hope that Wilna isn’t getting too sea-sick…

Do turtles get sea-sick?