Monday, September 17, 2018

Nesting turtles & enthusiastic volunteers!


It's been pretty quiet with the turtles in the south and patrols have mostly consisted of collection of rubbish on the main nesting beaches and a few Green turtle tracks here and there, but everyone is now patiently waiting for the appearance of the first Hawksbill turtle to officially announce the nesting season open... we look forward for the first tracks or even better...the first encounter! We have quite a few enthusiastic volunteers and interns around... Kitty shares her axperiences so far....

Kitty(left) & Jenny
My name is Kitty Daniels and I’m taking a year out between college and university to learn more about Marine Conservation. I arrived at the Banyan Tree Wildlife Conservation and Rehabilitation Centre at the start of this week to join Vanessa’s turtle monitoring project. I started off with a ‘Turtle Season Briefing’ which outlined what to do when I find a turtle nest, and how to collect the relevant data for the project. As it is only the beginning of the nesting season, we have not spotted  many signs of turtle nesting, but today we found green sea turtle tracks on Anse Grand Police, which is exiting because Green Turtles are not common in this part of the Seychelles. I have also helped with Beach Profiling, which is a monthly survey to monitor the sand movement on the beach in relation to the nesting platform for the turtles. So far this has just involved desk-based data entry, but I’m looking forward to getting stuck in on the beach! I have also taken part in the Banyan Tree Hotel’s ‘Management Cocktails’, which didn’t involve any cocktails for me, but I was able to speak to the guests about the upcoming nesting season, and to promote the centre and offer tours of the facilities. I’m very much looking forward to the next three months  I will spend here and for turtle season to really get underway!