Sea Turtles versus Dogs

So ....by now everyone should know that sea turtles are my favorite animals in the whole wide world........ but what some people don't know is that dogs are not at all on my list of favorites!! Recently we have had quite a few incidences (as in my last post) where dogs have been injuring Female sea turtles coming up the beach to nest.......... So I can confirm that Dogs will never make it to my favorite animals list unfortunately.

mostly injured around the 2 front flippers

Yesterday was an upsetting day as we had another Sea turtle versus Dog incident where it sadly ended fatally.. the poor turtle was found dead by the time we got there after brutal attacks from a pack of dogs from a house close to one of the beaches we monitor in the south of Mahe. It is clear that the nesting beaches would definitely be more safe for the sea turtles if it could become a temporary protected area at least during the nesting period and MCSS in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Veterinary services aims to reach that goal hopefully!

looks alive but sadly not!

Peak of the nesting season

Nesting Hawksbill turtle

Hawksbill turtle heading back safely

Halfway through the 2015-2016 Hawksbill nesting season........... it's been quite a busy one so far. This includes rushing in to work early morning and leaving the beach late in the afternoon....past normal working hours! But turtle encounters are top on our wishing list and  we are so happy that we've had 30 encounters so far in total on the main nesting beaches.




Poaching incidents have unfortunately been reported on a few occasions, but this past Sunday was a sad one as well as I was informed by the Greenline that we had an injured turtle on one of the South beaches, I didn't waste much time and drove straight down to attend to it. However when I got there the turtle had been helped back into the sea by a couple of tourist. The Hawksbill turtle was attacked by three dogs and all I found was a bloody trail heading back to sea left behind.

The bloody trail from the injured turtle

The journey begins

Our first nests are starting to hatch, we had our first one this morning which had approximately a total of 129 eggs and 40 of the little cuties were still trying to get out. Seeing that the nest had just been dug up by a dog, we immediately helped them to start their journey. It is hoped that the others had already left otherwise they could have sadly been easy prey for the dogs.

So the MCSS team remains on the look out for any turtle activities, patrolling the main nesting beaches almost everyday. For a quick update on the redeemed bottles.....we had almost R400 worth of bottles and cans which goes towards the MCSS funds....not an extreme effort..... all you need to do is care for the environment and simply love your job!

Mary helping to count the bottles 

The things we do for the environment!

Your egg chamber is too small!!

This week, I had three turtle encounters, one on Anse Corail and two on Anse Intendance.  The encounter on Anse Corail was a lucky encounter as we came across her nesting while we were just as we were patrolling the beach.  This turtle must have been desperate to lay her eggs: she dug 4 body pits before she started laying, and her eggs were overfilling her egg chamber!  We had to relocate 43 of her 168 eggs to keep her from accidently crushing them as she covered her nest.

The two encounters on Anse Intendance were thrilling.  I was the sole turtle researcher who was available to respond to the turtle call on Tuesday, as the other researchers were on another beach with a different turtle. A couple of tourists were very distressed when I raced down to the beach not knowing I was a researcher.  I thanked them later for that response; that is exactly how we want watchers on the beach to respond so that people will stay away from turtles on a beach.

The very next night, while I was at the hotel and waiting for guests to arrive for the Manager’s Cocktail hour, a turtle was spotted coming up the beach.  After getting my Trimble and measuring tape, I went to the beach to try to keep the guests low to the ground and behind the turtle.  The sight of the turtle and the setting sun over the water had attracted over 25 excited guests!  Many of them asked questions and were shocked to learn that sea turtles lay 150-200 ping-pong ball sized/shaped eggs in each nest and will nest about 4-5 times during a nesting season.  That’s between 600-1000 eggs in a season! (This turtle laid 156 that night.)

Nesting Hawksbill turtle

As the sun went down, most of the watchers went back to their villas, and I was left just with the stars and a turtle on the beach.  It was an amazing experience.

We had a French journalist named Therry visit MCSS this week.  He writes for a French magazine called QOA that covers eco-volunteerism, and Therry was interested in interviewing me and a couple other MCSS volunteers.  He asked me about how I heard about MCSS and what motivated me to volunteer in Seychelles.  I told him that I used MCSS as an example of science research teamed with ecotourism back when the whale shark monitoring project was working with a dive center in Mahe to offer encounters with whale sharks to both tourists and scientists.  From there, my interest in Seychelles grew, and when I learned about the turtle monitoring project, I jumped at the chance to volunteer.  Lynn and I walked through the wetlands with Therry, and he joined us on the turtle patrol for the day. The issue that the article will be published in should come out in early 2016.  The magazine is geared towards French speaking young adults as an effort to get them more interested in eco-volunteerism abroad.  To be a part of a movement of young people who are traveling and volunteering is exciting!

Cans & pet bottles pick up!!

Lastly for this post, for the past 4 weeks, Vanessa and I have been collecting cans and bottles from around Mahe.  Some of the beaches that we monitor on our turtle patrol were covered when we started collecting, and we’ve found many in the Intendance wetlands.  Collecting them has cleaned up these areas and kept plastic out of the ocean.  Cans and bottles can be redeemed at recycling centers in Seychelles for 25 cents each.  Looks like our collection will fetch 100 rupees at least! We’ll be turning them in next week, and I’ll share the final amount we got from them when we find out.

Our collection ready to be redeemed!

Hawksbill Nesting Season 2015-2016

Turtle Monitoring has been ongoing throughout the year and yesterday was a normal patrolling day and collection of rubbish on Anse Grand Police was my main focus for the day……at least I thought so…… until I turned around and saw my first Hawksbill turtle for this season  emerging from the sea! I got so excited as it is the first time I had an encounter straight up to start the season…..for the past seasons I always started off by observing tracks on the beaches and the encounters would come later.

I got my volunteer for the day… Lara to believe that she was the lucky charm…. But I have to say…they don’t call me ‘Turtle Magnet’ for nothing!

Lara observing the turtle track after measuring

Anyway we quickly gathered our necessary tools for data collection on our first encounter and watched as the Turtle tried and succeeded in pulling herself up an almost one metre erosion cliff…..though her hard work….the dry vegetation behind made it impossible for her to find a nice spot to start her digging process, so unfortunately the emergence was recorded as an ESBO (Emergence Stopped By Obstacle)…… but we have high hopes that she will definitely be back for other trials and eventually succeed in laying her eggs.

Turtle trying very hard to get over the erosion cliff

 It is thus with great joy and enthusiasm that we declare the Hawksbill Nesting Season officially open!!

Turtle exiting the beach

Maddy’s Gift

It seems hardly possible but it is two years since Maddy Cole, a bubbly MCSS Intern, Underwater Centre Divemaster and newly certified PADI Scuba Instructor was tragically taken from us by a boating accident of Pulau Perhentian Island, Malaysia.

However, through the determination of her family and friends, Maddy stays with us and through a fund known as Maddy’s Gift, her love of marine life is being continued through such worthy projects as supporting the purchase of a portable x-ray machine for the Wildlife Conservation and Rehabilitation Centre under MCSS and the Seychelles Veterinary Services.

To remember Maddy this 27th May, the second anniversary of her passing, the staff and volunteers of MCSS marked the day with a silent flower service on one of the turtle nesting beaches that she patrolled with us. 

Always in our hearts and thoughts….

Its a green!

Another contribution from Kristina our MSc student...

You remember there was a huge green turtle track on Grand Police? Just about two weeks later we had another one coming up; and this one did lay!! =) Plus, someone already saw the body pit and marked the area as a turtle nest. So generous that someone should put palm leaves around the body pit and hang a paper on one pillar of the shelter to warn that there is a nest. In fact, this was really good because it might make people more careful around the area but it does also mark the body pit as the nest instead of the actual nest. So, if some stupid people would decide to try and dig for eggs of harm the nest otherwise, they would only find sand. And maybe some crabs =) 

 Nicely marked sign for the turtle nest

The tracks were still visible and to be honest, the up- and the down-track were super close. The turtle must have just come up, dug and gone straight back down. Per se, this sounds logical and I didn’t really think that it was weird. BUT: greens are not hawksbills. That’s what I learned that day. Usually, green turtles will walk quite some way on the beach, make a lot of body pits, dig the nest, camouflage it really good, make another body pit and then go back down leaving a huge mess behind. This is why Vanessa first thought that she did not lay. But in the end it seemed very likely and we think that the nest is just next to the body pit (on that image above it would be to the left under the shelter). The sand showed all the characteristics; it was loose and looked like it has been recently moved.

The green turtle tracks, obscured by lots of human footprints

Can you make out the tracks on the picture? They are still visible. We assumed that the turtle came up one to two days prior to our patrol because they are visible but clearly not fresh anymore and there were a lot of human tracks around and over it. If tracks are quite fresh, it also helps to look where they start because that will be the water line at the time of emergence/exit. Then you can compare that with the current tide line and the tide table to get a rough time of emergence.

Nearing the end of the season

It has been way too long since the last blog entry! Time is just flying by. 

However, today I am gonna take some time to get you up to date though you didn’t miss so much. Here on Mahe the nesting season is now pretty much over. Usually, hawksbill turtles will come from October to January though there might always be some early birds and some late runners as well. This year, we still had some turtles coming up until mid-February!! 

Most of the late ones were seen on Intendance which is the beach by the Banyan Tree Hotel, but we did have some on Grand Police and Bazarca as well. On Grand Police, we also had a huge green turtle in this period. This is not as special, because green turtles lay all year round, but is was enormous even for a green. We measured an average track with of 120cm! :) And the body pits she dug, Oh my gosh.. so huge and deep!! It was amazing to see. In fact, it has been so overwhelming that I forgot to take pictures, which is really not like me. Sorry for that! Well, just imagine two huge holes in the ground that you could easily fit in and that’s what she dug. Unfortunately we could not find a nest, but green turtles are very good in camouflaging so that I’ll still keep an eye open around that area. 

But enough about tracks, we had some hatchlings as well. Sooooo cute =) These are getting less and less because a lot of the nests have hatched already, but there still have been some in February and March. And yes, I remembered to take some pictures this time. There was one nest on Anse Corail where the hatchlings were still there. In fact, there have been so many of them that we needed to put them back in and leave them though not before taking a picture for you  :)  

 Aren’t they the cutest?

Anyway, it could have been that the hatchlings were waiting under the sand for a good opportunity to try getting into the sea. Even though the nest was in the shade, Anse Corail is a very hot beach and the sun might just have been too much. The hatchlings will notice such circumstances and wait for the sun to go often only leaving the nest at night. Savi and Alvine had to put all of the little hatchlings back into the nest and cover them up. And I can safely report that we came back after the weekend and all of them seem to have been able to make it into the ocean!! Happy endings do exist :)    

Savi and Alvine covering the nest back up