CRIME ON THE BEACH

It really was a "crime on the beach" that was found this morning when a marked sea turtle nest was found to have been dug up by someone after pulling up the marking stakes and ribbon from the nest. This nest even had a yellow warning card advising beach goers that it is against the law to disturb these nests (see photo).

I guess we need a "Crime Watch" for the beach, as well, now that some ignorant individual, or group, has blatantly broken the law and destroyed an endangered sea turtle nest.

These egg "shells" were found a few yards down the beach near the water and appear to be all that remain of the dug-up nest. It never ceases to amaze me as to how irresponsible some people's behavior can be.

If you ever observe someone purposely destroying a sea turtle nest, or digging up the eggs from a sea turtle nest, please call 911 to report them. The only ones with authority to dig in such nests in our area are the biologists/employees of EAI, Inc.

A NON-NEST!

There were tracks leading from the ocean ............
and tracks leading to the ocean ........

but only an empty nest was dug and left by the turtle without any eggs being laid. It maay have been a late start by the female sea turtle and/or she was disturbed by early morning light, dogs on the loose on the beach (against the law), other predators or even humans. Hopefully, she will come back to this area of the beach another day and lay her eggs.

LEATHERBACK HATCHLING

This Leatherback hatchling was found on his way to the beach several days ago. He/she came from a nest that we found hatched on 7/21/10, so we subtracted the number of days that it took the average nest to incubate last year, resulting in our guestimate of when the nest was laid. We had to resort to that guesstimate, since this was one of the nests not staked out by EAI, Inc., nor initially recorded by us. We added a few days to the average because this was a Leatherback nest and they take, on the average, more days than do the Loggerhead nests to incubate. Our estimate of when that Loggerhead nest was laid is 5/23/10.

If you compare this hatchling to the Loggerhead hatchling on a previous blog post, you may be able to see the difference in size (the Leatherback hatchling is about twice the size of the Loggerhead hatchling).

With the northern fringes of Tropical Storm Bonnie hitting our beaches today, we will keep our fingers crossed that the wave action generated by the storm will not damage or destroy those nests located on our beaches.

SLOW STARTER!

Some hatchlings need to warm up their engines before they can make any forward progress! Included in this blog entry is a video of one that needed a few more seconds of "excercise" before he got down to business.

Several more hatchlings were saved today (as were two Leatherback hatchlings yesterday), as there continue to be some that don't make their exit from the nest during the night and get caught in the heat of the day or by predators such as birds, crabs, or racoons.

SCAMPER TO THE SEA

Several more hatchlings were "assisted" in their efforts to get to the ocean from their nest. It's a long haul for some of them, especially when they get a late start after the sun has risen.

THREE MORE SAVED!

Three more little guys saved this morning! If I can save 1000, one (1) may actually survive until maturity and return to our beaches! I've got about 800 to go, for my first 1000, so I will need to do this for a few more years. The hatchling that you see in the photo in this blog just hatched this morning - a little late, since the sun was already up, but not to late to help him/her find his/her way to the ocean.

Speaking of sea turtle survival, there was a great program on the National Geographic channel last week that showed the lifelong efforts of an environmentalist in Australia. He has kept track of Loggerhead nests and hatchlings (plus other types of sea turtles when they encountered them) for about 30 years. They would tag juveniles that they found in the ocean around the Australian beaches that he patroled, and "notch" the shell of the hatchlings from the nests that they had marked for study. The program described how, once the hatchlings hatch and reach the ocean, they are carried by the Pacific Ocean currents. The cycle appears to be that they travel with the easterly current in the south Pacific toward South America, then north along the west coast of South America, and finally westward toward Asia and Australia. I believe the that the program indicated that after 30 years of studying and waiting, they found one of the adult Loggerheads back on their Australian beaches! Quite a cycle, but they are very good at this "travel" since their ancestors have been doing this for over a million years! The study indicated that they believe that they found the reason for an 80% decline in the Pacific Ocean Loggerhead population - fishing nets. Once that was determined to be one of the major causes for the declining population, new laws were implemented throughout the Pacific that required fishermen to use nets that had "turtle doors" that would allow sea turtles to escape from the nets but keep in the fish. With these changes, they believe that the decline has ended and there appears to be a slight increase in the Loggerhead population in the Pacific.

Struggle To The Sea II

Each hatchling faces a major hurdle just getting from the nest to the ocean. During their travels for the next 30 years before returning to our beaches to lay their own nests, the female Loggerhead sea turtles face hungry birds, crabs, fish, sharks, and fishermen's nets and hooks. It's no wonder that some scientists estimate that only about one in 1000 survive to adulthood.

The hatchling in the attached video had a "handicapping condition". His/her bottom shell plate protruded more than normal shells, forcing its flippers too high off the sand to be effective in helping the hatchling make much progress on the sand. Some "assistance" was provided so that the hatchling could reach the water where, it was believed, the deeper bottom shell would not be a hindrance. Bon Voyage!