One
of my favorite parts of my job running SEEtheWILD is the opportunity to bring a
group of Portland, Oregon residents to participate in a volunteer vacation every spring with the leatherback sea turtles. As our group arrived to
our hotel the first night, the inevitable question was asked, “How many turtles
do you think we’ll see?”
As
an optimist, I always want to answer that question with a big number but past
experience has taught me that its better to set lower expectations. I hedged my
bets and said that we should see several, knowing that so far this season,
there have been a lot. A group that we organized in late March had 14 turtles
their first night and even had the opportunity to see on one the beach in the
morning, a rare chance to take a photograph.
I
tried to contain my excitement when we got to the turtle station and I learned
that there were 3 times as many nests in March of this year, compared to last
year. My optimism was confirmed though shortly after we got out to beach for
our 11 am patrol with the local researchers. It took all of 15 minutes to find
our first leatherback, just a few hundred meters up the beach. It had already
laid its eggs but our group was able to help measure the turtle and relocate
her eggs to a hatchery, where they are protected until they hatch in two
months.
The
second turtle we saw was practically waiting for us in front of the hatchery,
though another group of researchers were already working with her. Once we
created the new nest, we were alerted that a third turtle that had just come up
down the beach. On the way, we came across yet another turtle that had come
ashore but decided not to nest. As we arrived at the third turtle, we realized
she had just started to drop her eggs.
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| (credit: Neil Osborne) |
As
the researcher situated a bag to catch the eggs, I jumped in to dig out the
sand to create access for her and to collect the eggs that had already fallen
and put them into the bag. By the time we were done with that turtle, our four
hour patrol was just about finished and we still hadn’t walked our full section
of beach. As we got back to the station, we learned that another turtle had
laid its eggs just in front and a couple of our group stayed behind to dig it
out and move it to the hatchery.
---
Our
group slept the second day as late as the boisterous howler monkeys, roosters,
and rising heat allowed. Sharing the station with our group the first day was
an enthusiastic group of Costa Rican students participating in an educational
program of a US-based non-profit called Ecology Project International. Their
energy helped to keep the normally quiet and laid back atmosphere of the
research station lively with games and activities.
After
lunch, the project biologist, Stamie Sklirou, gave our group an educational
presentation about leatherbacks and other sea turtles of Costa Rica. She saved
the best for last as she brought us over to a desk with a sheet draped over the
top. As she lifted the sheet, we saw huddled in a dark corner of a sand-covered
box the season’s first leatherback hatchling.
This
tiny turtle had been found on the beach this morning and was being kept safe
until nightfall, when it has a much better chance of surviving the gauntlet of
crabs, birds, fish, and other animals that can easily swallow a hatchling in
the bright daylight. This hatchling had the good fortune of being the one that
the new volunteers were using to learn how to measure and collect information,
so it was handled more than its brothers and sisters who made it safely to the
water last night.
With
the season off to a good start, though, it was just the first of thousands that
will enter the warm water of the Caribbean, braving a gauntlet of fish, birds,
plastic, and fishing gear.
---
Our
final night of turtle patrols started slowly. With the moon providing some
light on the beach, we made a full pass of our section without seeing any
turtles. About halfway through the shift, though, we saw the now familiar trail
of dark sand heading up the beach that alerts us of a turtle’s presence.
I
convinced the patrol leader to let me catch the eggs and somewhat patiently
waited as she dug out the nest. Watching her back flippers alternate digging
out the sand, I realized that her right flipper was shorter than the left. Once
the turtle was done digging, I got the bag in place under the cloaca (where the
eggs drop from). She kept her damaged flipper inside the hole, resting it on
top of my hand while I held the bag.
It
wasn’t until the leatherback was done laying and started to cover the nest that
I realized just how damaged her flipper was. She tried to push down on the nest
and would have crushed her eggs had my hand not been holding her back. The
heavy scar tissue on the end of her flipper was very different from the soft
outer edge of most leatherback back flippers. Normally the eggs would have been
lower in the nest but the nest was not as wide as normal due to the shorter
flipper, hence the risk of breaking the eggs.
After
we pulled the eggs out of the nest to take to the hatchery, we inspected her
for other damage and that’s when realized what a tough turtle this was. More
than half of her front right flipper was missing, likely the result of a shark
bite. Despite these challenged, this inspiring turtle made it back to the
nesting beach and to lay an above average 99 eggs.
Its
turtles like this one that give me optimism for the future of this species. She
managed to migrate thousands of miles to reproduce, avoiding sharks, fishing
gear, and other hazards. Hopefully some of her hatchlings will inherit that
strength and make it back to this beach in a couple of decades.
