Let's Talk Numbers!

Playa Grande Turtle News 2007-2008
(as of 1/3o/08)

Total Nests on Beach: 428
Total Turtles Visiting Beach: 75
Total New Turtles: 27
Hatchery Hatchlings Released: 853
Estimated Hatchling Success on Beach: 68.5%

What do these numbers tell us?
Of all the turtles that nested on the beach this year it was the first time nesting for 27 of them. They came ashore with no tags and the researchers tagged them this season. The rest already had a pit tag and had visited the beach during a previous nesting season 2-4 years back.
As for the hatchling success for the nests located on the beach, about 2 out of every 3 eggs that were laid hatched, and hopefully these hatchlings made it safely to sea.

Pregunta: About how old do you think some of the 27 "first timers" were? How can you figure that out?

What can be done to reduce the use of plastic bags?

You may have read in one of the earlier posts on our blog that plastic bags can be extremely harmful to leatherbacks and other marine animals. Check out this article from the New York Times to see what the Irish have done to reduce the number of plastic bags in their country. Ms. O'Doherty you should be very proud of your homeland!

One last look at morning turtle.

Thank you all so much for following our blog the past few weeks and for posting great comments. Follow the link below to watch our morning turtle returning to sea.

Morning turtle says adios!

Adios Playa Grande!

Have you ever seen an adult female leatherback in the daylight? We have!

Meet our "Morning Turtle". On Friday morning, Jan. 25, 2008 we were fortunate enough to see a turtle nest during daylight. She emerged from the sea around 5am and we all rushed from our posts on the beach, and some of us from our beds, to see her. It is very rare that you see a leatherback come ashore to nest in daylight hours, and it's extra special because you can take pictures, something that is forbidden at night.
The first picture is of us in front of her nesting. The last two were taken as she headed back to sea. Notice the tracks, they may look like tractor tracks but they are leatherback tracks!

This was a phenomenal experience, we were only 2 days into the expedition and we got to see a morning turtle-- truly amazing.
Isn't she beautiful!

Answers to recent questions.

1. Shibani: Yes these leatherbacks are the same species as the leatherbacks found off the coast of India. These creatures have an incredibly large range.
2. Daisy: The leatherbacks are not slimy at all. They have a smooth skin and their hard shell is smooth like hard leather but has ridges—there are beautiful creatures.
3. Ms. Purn’s Second grade: Yes, I have seen an injured leatherback. One of the adult females that came to nest while I was patrolling had only 1 rear flipper. It was just a stub, like it had been amputated. She was still trying to use it to nest making the motions, but obviously not moving much sand. She looked pretty experienced; it was not a new injury.
4. ClassIV- A nest of leatherback eggs takes between 60-75 days to hatch. The turtles lay eggs in different places along the same stretch of beach- the beach is about 3.6 Km long. Scientists put satellites on the sea turtles to track their migration and learn about their behavior at sea. Only females come to shore to nest, so their life at sea is still a bit of a mystery.
5. Desire: When a turtle “nests” that means she is emerging from the sea and comes up on the beach to dig a hole in the sand that she will lay her eggs in and then cover them.
6. Daisy: Yes, we sometimes wear headlamps to help us see in the dark.

Great Questions everyone!

How to track a leatherback.

When looking for leatherbacks, the first thing we usually stumble upon are tracks. They look like tractor tracks.
Do you think the hatchlings seen in this photo are capable of making the tracks in the other photo? If it wasn’t a hatchling track, what was it?