2010-2011- A year to remember... My International Exchange + Internship: July 2011

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Mother Turtle who touched my heart

It was a beautiful, calm night, cool breeze, and bright full moon. My second night walk on Playa Norte of Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Five girls, a GPS, radio, headlamps on and record book. We searched for signs of nesting turtles, walked almost a distance of 10 miles that night. We had been walking for 3 hours, it was now 1am, and there it was, a clear uptrack from the sea into the beach vegetation. We could not see any downtrack back into the ocean, so it was then that we knew, mother turtle was nearby.

Lauren and I, the night patrol leaders that night (normally there's only one, but I was being trained). We followed the track into the vegetation very quietly. I then saw her, she was so beautiful, a mother green, looking for a good spot to nest. We stood very still, not wanting to scare her off. If a turtle gets disturbed while searching for a nesting site, she will stop and return into the water. So there we were, Lauren and I, standing by the turtle like statues, waiting patiently. The other three girls waited for our signal a bit further down the beach. She took around 20 minutes to find a good spot. Once she found it, she started digging her body pit, this took another 30 minutes. Lauren and I were at this point, back with the other girls, giving mother turtle her space, peace and quiet.

It was only my second time on a night patrol, so I was very excited that I would work a turtle for the first time.

The next stage of turtle nesting is for her to dig the egg chamber. At this point, she's deep into her body pit already, which she dug up using her front and back flippers. Now, using the back ones, she would start making her chamber, deep enough into the ground to place her precious eggs safely. The process of making her egg chamber is also very long. I think it may have taken about an hour. She positioned herself and dug in a circular motion very slowly and accurately.

Once she was finished, Charity, one of the girls, got down on the sand behind her with the "Maria" (or egg counter), and the tape measurer. She counted the eggs as they fell low into her hand, and then into the depths of the chamber. Once full, she measured the "egg depth", which is the depth from the last egg laid up to the top of the chamber.

It was an amazing experience to see mother turtle lay her eggs, I could not wipe the smile off my face! She contracted, grunted and huffed. When laying, the turtle gets into a sort of trance, so at that time, she cannot be disturbed...our presence does not bother her.

So...the egg chamber is now filled with eggs, and the turtle starts to disguise the nest, making it less visible to predators. While she did the disguising, I had to measure the length and width of her carapace....yes, I got covered with sand, I even ate some of it. She pushed me away with her flippers now and then because I was in her way, she was doing her job as a mother, protect her offspring by hiding them as much as possible. Finally, I got the final measurements. Lauren then tagged her flippers for identification and conservation purposes. The other two girls, Megan and Leah, got the GPS coordinates, and triangulated the nest, so that when hatching time comes two months later, we would know the nest location....this is all procedure.

Proud and excited, after three long hours, we finished working the turtle, and she started on her way back into the ocean. We were on that beach from 10pm-4:30am. We disguised her tracks like there's no tomorrow, we made sure NOONE would find those eggs. Mother turtle swam away under the moonlit sky. That night, we gave a chance to life to 88 future little hatchlings, we did our best, so now it is up to nature.