The good and bad side of the rain!

The late comer

Monday 15^th February was still an amazing day for me despite the heavy rain. In the morning, I saw a turtle who was covering her nest. She was very big, her carapace length was  84cm and the width was 73cm. Vanessa and I, watched her until she went back to the sea. It was another amazing moment with the turtle. I am so lucky, because in the end of January it is generally the end of the nesting peak season, I never thought we would still be having encounters in mid February!!

The journey begins!

Then, in the beginning of the afternoon we saw a hatching on Anse Intendance. Johnny and Holly (my colleagues) have seen a little depression and when they touched the sand, they could feel some movements. So they began to dig and they found on the top some little turtles. They didn’t want to dig the entire nest, because the baby turtles have to come out alone without help. So we were waiting for maybe 30 minutes, and when the heavy rain came (the temperature outside was now lower than the temperature inside the nest) all the turtles came out of the nest. They were very fast. In total, we had 141 baby turtles. Even though we were very wet (like we go out of the shower) it was a beautiful moment. What an amazing day, a big turtle and lots of baby. What more could you want?

First few hatchlings coming out

Eroded nest

Today, in Anse Corail, we saw a track of a Hawksbill turtle. I think this one was very confused because of all the obstacles and because of the hard ground. She did 5 body pits and she finally laid near a shelter….

We were also sad, because since Monday, in Seychelles, there was

very heavy rain and some flooding, and in Anse Corail 3 nests were destroyed: 2 flooded and one because of the erosion cliff (when we arrived, we found a cliff into the nest… So Vanessa moved 60 eggs away but we are not sure that the turtles will hatch because of all the water and because the eggs were not in the sand anymore….

Lea from France.... the hatchling magnet!!

My name is Léa, and I am from France. I came here on the 13^th January to do my internship for my second year of my masters, to study the nesting behaviour process of the hawksbill turtles. I will stay at the office until the middle of June. So now, it will be me who will continue to write the blog.

When I first arrived for the two first weeks I was at the office in Beau Vallon and for the past three weeks I’ve been working in the south as a member of the MCSS’s team.

The 15^thof January was such an amazing day for me, I came from Beau Vallon to do the beach patrol and in Anse Corail, Vanessa told me to dig a nest which was due. During the 5 first minutes, I found nothing… but after that, I began to see 3 baby turtles, I was so excited. Vanessa told me that we have to dig up the nest entirely because; he was very far from the sea and completely in the vegetation with lots of roots and obstacles in the nest itself. In total, we put 224 turtles in the sea. We were very lucky because it was a very big nest.

My first day in the south (the 21^th January) was just amazing because I saw all the laying process of the Hawksbill turtle. Vanessa and me, stayed with the turtle for 2h30 hours, she was very slow and very tired, but it was a wonderful moment for me. It was the first time I saw a turtle laying, so you can imagine how excited I was!!

On the second week, on Monday and Tuesday, Inga, Laura and I did the beach profiling. It’s only to measure the erosion on the beach. We have to do it, each month in all the 6 mains beaches. It was easy, but it was very long and with the heat it was sometimes hard but we managed to do it very well.

Otherwise, Inga and I were very lucky because on the Sunday 31^th of January evening, just after we ate our dinner, the staff called us, because there were hatchlings on the beach near the villa. When we arrived, we found 16 baby turtles near the light, which was in the other direction to the sea. They wanted to cross the road. We know that once on the surface, newborns head to the sea, the brightest spot. But when there are lights, they are more attractive by the light rather than to the sea. So, we managed to be very fast, and didn’t forget any of them (because they were everywhere), so we put all the baby turtles in my bag to release them afterwards into the sea. It was a special moment, and we were very excited. The security guy who was with us, told us, that he already put more than one hundred babies into the sea, because he found them everywhere near the villa. We were very happy to save the life of these cute baby turtles.

Monday 8^th February, we were on the patrol and in Anse Corail, Vanessa saw a depression in the sand. When we arrived, we had lots of hatchlings in the hole, and they could not get out because the hole was too deep, so we took all of them out of the hole. In total, we had 63 baby turtles who were still in the hole and in total 137 eggs shells. So lucky to see that!

 

Mary's last update!

Add caption

By now, we are about ¾ of the way through the nesting season, and I thought I would update everyone on how the season is going!  We have had a busy season, with a total of 50 turtle encounters and 191 nests across 14 beaches.  176 nests are on the 6 main nesting beaches in the South of Mahe, with Anse Intendance having the most at 50 nests! Many of the earlier laid nest have hatched (the incubation time for the nests is around 2 months). We dig up as many hatched nests as we possibly can to count the number of egg shells and see the hatching/survival rate of the eggs.  Sometimes, eggs we find in the nest have stopped developing for some reason, likely because the nest was flooded at some point during incubation.  Occasionally, eggs don’t show any sign of development, which means the egg was probably an unfertilized egg when the turtle laid her eggs.

Collecting egg clutch survival data

This week, we had a familiar turtle visitor on Anse Intendance. 

The distinct track of the 3-legged turtle

This season, we’ve had a turtle that is missing her back left flipper nesting on Anse Intendance.  The injury appears very old and well healed. We think she either lost her flipper to a shark bite or from being entangled in a fishing line.  Because of her back stump, she leaves an interesting track mark in the sand when she emerges from the sea, so we have been able to tell when and where she has come up.

Hawksbill turtles lay 4-5 nests in a nesting period, and this is the three-legged turtle's third confirmed nest.  Usually, the turtles will emerge around every 14-20 days to lay a nest during the nesting season (Hawksbill turtle nesting season is October-February). Their reproductive cycle is every 2-3 years, so this turtle will likely return in 2017-2018.

Slowly but surely covering her nest!

Despite missing one of her back flippers that turtles use for digging, the turtle seems to have adjusted well to having only 3 legs and she has become one of our favorite turtles among the turtle patrol team.

Unique photo ID of the 3-legged turtle

This is my last blog post for MCSS, I’ll be leaving Seychelles next week.  I have had an amazing time here working with the sea turtles and amazing and dedicated conservationists! I hope I will come back and see all these turtles again one day!  Until then, Bon voyage!

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