We were out at 6:00am for dawn patrols. The amazing sunrises are nearly worth the trade-off for the lack of sleep.
Five nests hatched overnight, and some of them were ones we were worried were going to get washed out in the storm, so that’s good. It’s sometimes hard to tell turtle tracks from ghost crab tracks, and sometimes tracks get washed away altogether, so you can’t always tell if something has hatched.
Can you tell which ones are ghost crab tracks and which ones are turtle tracks?
With tracks washed away, it's impossible to know if they were there at all.
Lots of turtle tracks indicate that a nest hatched overnight.
One of the things we check for on hatched nests is the number and direction of turtle tracks to see how many hatchlings got disoriented versus how many went straight to the ocean. The group using this data has measurements of light pollution and direction that they will compare with which nests got disoriented and how much foreign light those nests receive.
Hard to believe a hurricane's brewin' with a sky like that.
Dolphin skeleton on the beach.
At breakfast it was decided that we would dig all nests over 60 days old, instead of waiting the typical 70-75 days along with anything that had been washed by the tides. The hurricane is now predicted to get closer than previously thought, so we won’t have time to wait. My group of four broke into pairs to tackle nests faster. Halfway through, Kris got a call from the harbor master that the hurricane has been upgraded to a category 4, and that the marina may be closed on Saturday, meaning we would have no way to leave the island. We may wind up leaving early. If that’s the case, we’ll be digging as many nests as we can and removing all protection so we don’t inadvertently dump a bunch of metal and plastic grating into the ocean when the storm hits. Although it isn’t supposed to hit until Monday at the earliest, and we still won’t be near the worst of it, everyone on shore seems to be taking it very seriously.
What this means for us is that we are no longer breaking open unhatched eggs to determine at what stage of development each one died; we’re now just counting hatched and unhatched eggs. This data is less useful for determining cause of death but better than no data at all, which is what we’d get if we just didn’t get to them before we were evacuated. Hurricane Dorian is really running amok with our plans.
Eggs we count in the nests. Most of these have hatched, but you can see the one in the back right with goo in it is decomposed.
After finishing our first batch of nests, we went back to base and when we saw that the other group wasn’t back yet, we went back out to help them dig their nests. When everyone was done, we went back to camp and had lunch; quesadillas, yum. Then we went out to dig our final nests for the day. We were running low on fuel so we returned to base and Kris went back out by herself to take down the number markers. The other group returned, with a bucket of babies that came crawling out of one of their dig nests. We’ll release them at dusk. Kris came back with a hurricane update: we will continue as if it were a normal final volunteer week and leave on Saturday. So, there is some free time before supper.
I am using this time to organize my clothing, draw on the wooden tile for the cabin (Bobby helped), read, and just otherwise catch up on stuff. We will be patrolling at low tide tonight after supper.
The tile I made (with help) to symbolize our week. The rest of the group added their own flair later on.
One of the cool things we got to see on last night’s patrol was the work of a visiting researcher who is trying to determine which direction hatchlings orient themselves in while they’re developing, and if the nest covering material (metal vs plastic) has any effect on that. They have certain nests that they are digging up while the babies are still forming inside their eggs, marking directions on the eggs (north, south, east, west), and then marking which direction the baby embryo is facing (you can see this by candling the egg, holding it up to a strong flashlight, allowing you to see direction, development, blood vessels, and even see and feel movement).
Researchers taking notes on egg orientation.
Marking the egg orientation.
This egg is being candled, or held up to a flashlight to see what's inside. The dark spot is the turtle's head.
There is a lot of different research going on here that we collect data for. In addition to the ones I’ve already mentioned (studying DNA of turtle embryos to isolate mothers and determine laying patterns therefore knowing where to protect, light pollution, orientation, and just general population data), some of the nests we collect unhatched eggs and sand samples for a scientist studying bacterial and fungal nest infections. The mothers are tagged and DNA sampled when they make nests, tidal and predator data are recorded, and some nests have monitors in them to record temperature and humidity while incubating to see what effect those have on success (these we dig up and bag and send back to the scientist who sent them here at the beginning of the season). It is pretty cool to know how much we’re helping.
Gathering sand samples.
Bagging a decomposed egg for analysis of bacteria/fungus present.
Eggs, sand, and bits of dead turtle, all bagged and tagged for researchers back on the mainland.
At dusk we went out to release the turtles from the daylight nest boil, and it was adorable. Wet shoes. Worth it.
Lots of pictures and videos below.
So many pictures. Click one and the lot of them will pop up to scroll through.
We had some free time after that before low tide, so I read my book for a while in my bunk, then joined Kris, Nawdane, and Bobby on our night patrol. One nest hatched before we got there, but we saw tracks. A lot of nests were washed out which is sad. We did see a dead shark, though, in tact and just laying on the beach, which was kind of cool.
Tomorrow we get to sleep in, but it will also be a long and laborious day of digging. Due to another hurricane update, we will be digging anything that has hatched or should have by now, which will take all day.
