Living the dream: Turtle tracks, nests and hatchlings on Klein Bonaire!



The last few weeks have been busy for STCB staff and volunteers on Klein Bonaire. Klein Bonaire (Dutch for "Little Bonaire") is a small island roughly 6 kilometres square that lies within the crescent of Bonaire about 800m from Bonaire’s shore. It is now part of the Bonaire National Marine Park. So far this year Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire (STCB) have located 67 nests on Klein Bonaire, 19 of which have already hatched! We have Loggerhead, Green and Hawksbill turtles that nest here.

A view of Klein Bonaire from Bonaire.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning we walk the beaches of Klein Bonaire. At 7am the view on No Name Beach on Klein Bonaire is beautiful and so peaceful, a great way to start the day. I definitely recommend a visit, especially if you like to snorkel and hopefully you will see some turtles! We like to be there as early as possible so that when we walk the beaches we can see the tracks when they are fresh, also before there are too many people on the beaches.

Jump if you love Sea Turtles!

Juvenile Green Turtles like to feed in the shallow water around Klein Bonaire and can be often seen coming up to breath.

We look out for any turtle tracks, any body pits that could be nests and hatched nests. If we find any turtle tracks we use all the evidence to help locate the nest. Sometimes the mama turtle might not like an area, so will walk around to find somewhere more suitable to lay a nest or go back into the sea, this is called a false crawl. When we identify a nest we start to dig where we think the eggs are. I normally end up covered from head to toe in sand! We only need to find the top egg in the chamber but even this can take forever and in some cases we don’t always find the eggs! In most cases we do find the eggs and we record the location of the nest so when know where all of the nests are on the beach. The Loggerhead and Green turtles tend to lay in the sand dune areas and the Hawksbills prefer the bushes, which makes it even more difficult to find the eggs, but they don’t always stick to this pattern. Knowing the location of each nest allows us to keep an eye on the nests and when it comes to the time for hatching (around 50-60 days in the peak season) and we can spot when the nest is hatching or has hatched. When a nest hatches all the turtles surge to the surface and into the sea en masse, this creates a small depression in the sand and lots of small turtle tracks heading to the sea!

Following the turtle crawl. If we follow the tracks that lead back to the sea we can  usually find the nest!

My first time finding the eggs!

We only find the location of the top egg in the chamber, record it and cover it up again straight away. We  can also identify what species it is by the eggs!

Lots of hatchling tracks heading from a nest towards the sea!

After we know that a nest has hatched we open it up (excavate it). This allows us to help any trapped hatchlings escape. The first time I saw hatchlings in a nest was one of the best experiences of my life! We found a hatched nest that we didn’t know about and when we went into the nest found two baby Hawksbill turtles trapped deep in the nest! It was brilliant and the little ones were raring to go to sea! We wanted to release them straight away, so Funchi and I swam them out into the deep so they had more of a chance of survival. Then they were free, ready to drift out and begin their lives!

Excavating the nest, we count the empty egg shells, dead eggs, dead hatchlings and live hatchlings. 

My very first hatchlings!

The hatchlings have more of a chance if they all leave the nest together. 

Funchi and I swimming the hatchlings into the deep so they have more chance to escape the day time predators!

Depending on the circumstances we release some of the hatchlings from the boat!

For some nests, the nest excavation is vital for the survival of many hatchlings. I have seen hatchlings trapped deep in the nest or among roots in the nest. If they can’t escape, the baby turtles would die within the nest. I believe that the intervention of STCB is necessary to help these species especially when the survival rate is only 1 in 1000 will make it to adulthood, so even saving one hatchling could help increase their success!

Freedom!

This is a dead egg, the turtle inside died before the yolk sac was absorbed.

We also count the number of eggs, dead eggs, live hatchlings and dead hatchlings in the nest so that we can work out the hatching success. So far this has varied from 0-96% hatching success! But the intervention we do hopefully increases the survival rate and maybe one of the hatchlings that we help release will make to be that one adult in 1000 that returns to that beach!

We like to share this amazing experience with others so we take volunteers to Klein. This allows people to see the work that we do and see something so special that not many people on the planet have ever seen! So many volunteers help us release hatchlings which is fascinating for everyone involved and something that you remember for the rest of your life, I know I will!

Thank you for reading! Watch out for my next blog!