Interesting encounters.

So far my blog has been more of an introduction to what I am actually doing in Cano Palma, and a little bit less about the actual culture and issues that surround turtle conservation work here. However, so far there have been a few "interesting encounters" that have gone on in the past month that I wanted to touch on.

Spoiler alert: I apologize for lack of (relevant) pictures in this blog.

The first encounter was a week or two ago when we ran into a group of Ph.D. students from the US on the beach at night, with a turtle. This was rather strange for two reasons. First, the beach here, Playa Norte, is protected and therefore, the public cannot access it between 6pm and 5am. Second, in order to be on the beach during those hours one needs a permit from MINAET (the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications). After a bit of chatting it was clear that this group of Bison and Frog Ph.D. students were unaware that they did not have permits for being on the beach. However, from doing a bit of investigation ourselves, it was clear that they did not actually have permission or permits to be there.

The second encounter happened just last week when while "working" a leatherback turtle, the person in the house behind the beach where she was nesting came out with a small group to see the turtle. To be honest I can't really say how I feel about this. The beach is protected, but people seeing turtles nest is important to raise awareness about the importance of their conservation. However, after hearing stories of this particular individual feeding past volunteers turtle eggs...I don't know how to feel about the situation.

Finally, the last story I was not actually there for, but was told when the night patrol returned a couple of nights ago. While out on the beach our patrol team came across a family digging in the sand. Our team passed them at first but on the way back, when they finally approached them, the reaction was surprising. Lots of giggles, while they (pretended? - or didn't pretend) to build a sand turtle sculpture. This caused some suspicion -- were they poaching a nest? Trying to help hatchlings out of their nests? When our patrol team went out the next morning they looked for signs of a poached nest where the group had been the night before, but did not find anything. So although the family wasn't legally allowed to be out on the beach at that particular time, they weren't causing any direct harm.

What confuses me most about all of these things is where does one draw the boundary of telling people -- especially the local community -- what they can and can't do when it comes to something they have been doing for centuries.

Whether the people on the beach at night are families playing (or not?), curious locals (that occasionally poach?) and university groups (that don't have permits?) -- what are the boundaries?

To lighten it up here are some photos of some of our friends that hang out around base...please enjoy! 

Proboscis Bats that hang out under the dock. 

Howler Monkeys that like waking us up in the
mornings. 

White-faced Capuchin Monkey in
the tree outside our rooms.

Strawberry Poison Dart Frog who
hangs out by the washrooms.

Slaty-tailed Trogan outside the
kitchen.

Sarah's picture of a 
Slaty-tailed Trogan posing!

Juancho the Caiman who hangs out under
the dock.

Thanks to Sarah for taking some of these pictures with her wicked camera - check out her blog at: http://roamingfrijole.blogspot.com/.

Excavation day.

So today was mine and Sarah's second attempt at excavation of a hatched turtle nest. To be precise it was Sarah's third excavation and my second. To be honest, I wasn't going to even write about it because it was so nasty the first time. I was simply going to put a link to Sarah's blog because she had written about it earlier.

However, after today, this may have changed a little bit. Today we had to excavate two nests that hatched two days ago. The first nest contained two live hatchlings which was amazing, and the second wasn't nearly as gnarley as the first which gave me hope for future excavations.

Basically, excavations of the nests are done after they have either passed their incubation date by a certain amount of time, or if they show signs of hatchings - ie. hatchling tracks coming from a big hole in the sand that looks like a volcano - we excavate after two days. The excavations happen in order to check the nest success.

What it involves is first finding the "volcano" where the nest erupted, and then digging down with your hands until you reach the egg chamber. Sarah has been really good at this - me not so much. It generally smells really awful and in some cases there are a lot of natural predators - ie. maggots - helping the decomposition process of the unhatched eggs. 

What the volcano like once the digging process
has begun.

Once we reach the egg chamber we take out the eggs and separate them into different piles - shells that are larger than 50%, yolkless eggs and unhatched eggs. After that we have to check the stage of development of the unhatched eggs...this is generally not too pleasant either, but Sarah and I agreed that if she dug I would check egg status.

Pictures from our first attempt at excavation -
it may look like I am digging here, but Sarah was in
with her ankles hanging out by the end of it!

Eggies separated into piles - from the top down,
unhatched eggs, shells greater than 50%, and
yolkless eggs.

Our first little friend as they returned to sea!

What above all makes it all worth it though, is the chance to see live hatchlings. In our very first excavation there was one little leatherback still buried in the nest, trying hard to make its way out. Today there were two in one nest which was even more awesome because it was just the two of us working on the excavations. We then named one Kirstin and one Sarah as we watched them go into the sea - a bit narcissistic, yes, but after excavating the nests it was the best part of the whole thing.

A special thanks to Melissa Coakley for taking these pictures. 
Check out her website for more: www.snakehuntingchick.com

Turtle time.

Apparently I like to start my blogs with a story if I can, so here goes another.

The first time I saw a leatherback turtle nesting, I must have been about seven years old. It was in Trinidad in the Village of Matura. While there, my mom, aunt, cousins and I got to see a leatherback laying her eggs and at the same time, a nest close by also began hatching. I remember being given special permission by the tour guide to help some of the hatchlings get to the ocean, and until now that was my most memorable memory of leatherbacks.

What I remember...
(Picture from: http://natureseekers.org/gallery/photo55.html)

Two nights ago that changed, and somehow Sarah and I got to experience each working with a leatherback turtle on the same night. It was completely dark, with no moon, miserable and pouring rain when we went out. Sarah was on the first night patrol and I was on the second.

When I found her I could barely see a foot in front of my face, but the sand seemed stirred up in front of us. As the patrol leader I then had to stop the group, and try to find where the tracks were leading. I know it is hard to believe that it was so hard to find such a gi-normous creature, but it was really difficult because it was so dark.

She was already laying her eggs as we approached so I didn’t get to count the eggs, but we still got to check for tags, record measurements for her length and width, do a body check, and triangulate the nest when she was finished. Luckily, Sarah’s group ran into us as we were “working the turtle” and so her group got to watch and help a bit too.

This is what it looked like when we found her - minus the
white light.
(Picture from: http://natureseekers.org/gallery/photo20.html)

After we watched her return to the water, our groups went our separate ways. It must not have been less than 20 minutes later that we received a radio message from Sarah’s group, who had found another leatherback laying a nest further down the beach. Her turtle was at the same stage of nesting that the one I saw earlier was in, so her and her group also got to experience the same sequence of events as our group, and because we weren’t that far away, my group made it in time to see another turtle.

Now, looking back it is pretty cool to compare this moment to the one when I was seven. I definitely don’t remember the turtle being as big as it was here, but that might have been because I was so much more aware, and working so much more closely with the turtle this time. We still have to see a loggerhead and green turtle nesting, and have a lot to look forward to once the nests start to hatch!

Until nest next time…haha…

The long walk.

Last year I read Slawomir Rawicz’s book, The Long Walk, detailing his personal journey from Siberia to India after escaping Russian capture pre-WWII – great book, some controversy around whether or not the details in it are true, but you can make that judgment if you decide to read it yourself. BUT regardless, I seem to keep coming back to that book every night when I feel tired.

Basically, a large portion of my position as a “patrol leader” here in Tortuguero consists of patrolling the beach at night for nesting turtles. With this, COTERC (Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rainforest Conservation) can basically take data on the nesting turtles, nests and nest success, to keep a long term record of nesting turtles on Playa Norte.

The transect that we cover is 3 and 1/8 miles however on night patrols we are required to double back on the beach instead of taking a path home. During the morning patrols we can just do 3 and 1/8 miles and take a path back home. So depending on if we see a turtle or not sometimes you can walk anywhere from 6.5 miles to 10 miles on the wet sand, on the beach, without any light at all, until about 2 or 3am – its around 1am that I usually start to think of The Long Walk and it usually helps me put my (not so) long walk into perspective.

Last night Sarah and I were extremely lucky though, and had our first turtle encounter. She was a hawksbill. At night unfortunately we can’t take pictures…for a few reasons – 1. turtles are sensitive to white light, 2. anything with light can give away our location to poachers. So I have stolen this picture instead.

Hawksbill turtle
(Taken from: http://www.seaturtle.org/imagelib/?photo=4669)

It was pretty exciting…especially since we found her as we were nearing the end of the transect.  If we hadn’t found her, we would have had to turn around and continue walking for another hour, so she saved us. When we found her she didn’t nest, and ended up going back into the water shortly after. But because poaching is so high here we were happy that we found her and saw her back into the water, since hawksbill shells are highly prized.

My next night walk is tomorrow…so hopefully we will get lucky again.

For more info on COTERC's turtle projects click here!

It’s come full circle.

For my first Halloween, my mom dressed me as a Ninja Turtle, to be specific it was Raphael. Now that I have made this realization, I find it funny that this love of turtles has gotten me to this place. That being said, for now my adjective to describe what I am feeling at this moment would be “wonder”.

I chose the word wonder because I have never quite seen beauty, quite like what I am seeing in Tortuguero. On our first day alone we saw species that I have only dreamt about seeing in person. Between the howler monkeys, toucans, caiman, crocodiles and mama and baby sloth, I don’t think I could be more amazed. 

The first caiman we saw on our way into the station

First encounter with a crocodile

Three toed sloth with a baby on her side.
Try to look up, you can see its little arm.

That doesn’t even include the turtle walks. Although we haven’t seen any turtles yet, we have seen loggerhead half moon tracks -- the shape of the tracks the turtles make when they haven’t nested and just go back in the water. This was particularly “wondrous” because of the four types of turtles that could nest on the beach we are permitted to do work on, Playa Norte, loggerheads are one of the more rare species found nesting here (hawksbills nesting here are also more rare, while the more common turtles that nest here are green and leatherback turtles).

Turtle tracks!

I can’t wait to actually see one nesting and by the time that happens I am sure it will keep the wonder over here alive; although I don’t know how anyone could lose their amazement for this place. Every day we seem to find something new and exciting. Tomorrow we have our first night patrol of the beach for nesting turtles so I am very excited to learn the protocol for that, and excited for the chance to see a nesting sea turtle. I know the first time I see one will probably be one of the most memorable moments of this trip, so I am looking very forward it.

All-in-all, so far I appreciate the opportunity to be here very much, and I cannot wait to learn more. Until next time...

Heroes in a half shell...(taken from: 
http://www.moronail.net/img/883_movies_animals)