General Update on the 2015-2016 turtle nesting season

The Highlights of the season has passed and turtle monitoring is quite easy and quick now without tracks and turtles on the beach....but the patrol must go on and MCSS monitors the nesting beaches throughout the year...... you never know...... we might bump into something interesting!

It has been an exciting season so far and as you have seen following our previous blogs..... turtle encounters....... hatchlings.......those are enough to make your day and keep you thinking that this must be the best job ever!!

Explaining track measurements

Altogether we had the chance to encounter 54 nesting Hawksbill turtle...and each felt like the first one due to the excitement of simply encountering these beautiful creatures. My favorite patrol so far was the day I encountered 5 nesting turtles on one beach...at the same time!! Wonderful to experience but one can go bonkers trying to collect data from all of them at the same time!

Apart from the encounters a great number of tracks were also recorded on the nesting beaches; 426 tracks. Altogether 222 nests were identified and we have been able to collect egg clutch survival data from quite a good number of nests.

However, this season we recorded a higher number of poaching incidents, sadly some people are still killing Hawksbill turtles though the fact that they are critically endangered, this only makes me more determined to push on through with the conservation work that we are doing and reinforce on strategies to bring more protection for Sea Turtles.

Nesting Hawksbill turtle