One of my favorite parts of my job running SEEtheWILD is the opportunity to bring a group of Portland, Oregon residents to participate in a volunteer vacation every spring with the leatherback sea turtles. As our group arrived to our hotel the first night, the inevitable question was asked, “How many turtles do you think we’ll see?”
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As an optimist, I always want to answer that question with a big number but past experience has taught me that its better to set lower expectations. I hedged my bets and said that we should see several, knowing that so far this season, there have been a lot. A group that we organized in late March had 14 turtles their first night and even had the opportunity to see on one the beach in the morning, a rare chance to take a photograph.
I tried to contain my excitement when we got to the turtle station and I learned that there were 3 times as many nests in March of 2012, compared to 2011. My optimism was confirmed though shortly after we got out to beach for our 11 am patrol with the local researchers at Las Tortugas Research Station. It took all of 15 minutes to find our first leatherback, just a few hundred meters up the beach. It had already laid its eggs but our group was able to help measure the turtle and relocate her eggs to a hatchery, where they are protected until they hatch in two months.
The second turtle we saw was practically waiting for us in front of the hatchery, though another group of researchers were already working with her. Once we created the new nest, we were alerted that a third turtle that had just come up down the beach. On the way, we came across yet another turtle that had come ashore but decided not to nest. As we arrived at the third turtle, we realized she had just started to drop her eggs.
As the researcher situated a bag to catch the eggs, I jumped in to dig out the sand to create access for her and to collect the eggs that had already fallen and put them into the bag. By the time we were done with that turtle, our four hour patrol was just about finished and we still hadn’t walked our full section of beach. As we got back to the station, we learned that another turtle had laid its eggs just in front and a couple of our group stayed behind to dig it out and move it to the hatchery.
