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!

The start of my adventure in Bonaire...

Getting to Manchester in the early hours of Sunday 1st July I was excited but the nerves had started to set in. After nearly a full day of travelling, I arrived in Bonaire at the appropriately named Flamingo Airport and met the manager of STCB, Mabel Nava, at the airport to take me to where I was staying. I was very enthusiastic as had never travelled this far away before! Bonaire is a small island in the south of the Caribbean that is part of the Dutch Caribbean. The island is home to three species of Sea Turtles; the Loggerhead, the Hawksbill and the Green turtle. These are all either listed as endangered or critically endangered and face a variety of threats across the globe, many of which are human induced. My summer placement here will allow me to help work to protect these magnificent animals and carry out my own research for my Masters in Marine Environmental Management at the University of York.

Early morning at Manchester Airport the sun goes up as I board the plane and the adventure begins!

I began my work with Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire on the 2nd of July. STCB is a Non profit organisation that aims to help protect and conserve sea turtles across their range. The organisation was founded in 1991, to protect the turtles that were threatened by poaching, accidental capture and loss of nesting beaches. It also carries out a variety of research projects in order to understand more about their lives and their behaviour. STCB collaborates with many conservation organisations on Bonaire as well as WIDECAST, which includes the turtle conservation organisations in the wider Caribbean. I was really eager to start work with them as I want to work in conservation in the future.

Not a bad walk to work!

Spectacular ocean views in beautiful Bonaire

The salt mounds and pink salt pans in the south of Bonaire.

My first day working for STCB was very eventful. The day began with an unexpected arrival on Bonaire, an Olive Ridley Turtle found on the East coast of Bonaire in a bay called Lagoen (this species has only been seen on Bonaire once before). She had become entangled in fishing rope attached to a buoy and had drifted a long way with the currents unable to feed properly. She was very malnourished and dehydrated so we took her to a freshwater tank where she could re-hydrate and be fed to try increase her strength. This made it very real to me how these animals are facing so many increasing threats from the likes of fishing and how organisations like STCB are needed in order to help protect them. STCB staff named the turtle Jenny on account that she arrived on the same day I did from a long way away! The next day she was a bit stronger so staff decided to release her at the other side of the island where it is more sheltered. She hasn’t been seen since so lets hope she got back to where she came from or gets to where she is going safely.

An unexpected arrival to Bonaire, an Olive Ridley turtle and my first turtle rescue.

Not only has she come a long way but she has an old wound  from a shark bite at the back of the shell (carapace).

Jenny in the rehabilitation tank to build up her strength, feed and rehydrate  her before she is released.

Jenny the Olive Ridley Turtle.

In the afternoon of my first day I was taken to the beaches in the south of Bonaire where turtle tracks (called a crawl) had been spotted by one of the dedicated STCB volunteer beach keepers. They patrol the beaches every morning looking for signs of turtle activity and prevent any human activity that could harm the turtle nests. The tracks showed an inward and an outward crawl and a body pit. I learnt how to identify the direction of the tracks and where how the female turtle created a body pit. We began to dig and eventually managed to find the top egg of the nest chamber, which is enough to confirm the nest. We also recorded the exact location, freshness, species and flagged the nest so we could keep an eye on it. Actually seeing the experts locate the eggs in the nest, understand the crawl and identify the species was extremely overwhelming and I knew I had a lot to learn in a short space of time!

Following my first turtle crawl!

Careful digging for turtle eggs by Sue, Lisette and Janice from STCB. 

Every Tuesday I work at Lac Bay on the East Coast with Funchi a member of STINAPA to maintain the sea grass protection at Sorobon. Funchi is a gregarious local that is really fun to work and always manages to make me laugh. He seems to know everybody and I am sure he has magical powers when it comes to detecting the eggs when we find a nest as he almost always finds them straight away! The Sea Grass ecosystems within Lac Bay are especially important for Green Turtles and here they have the fastest growth rates in the world due to the rich sea grass habitat. In fact there are so many Green Turtles in the entrance to the bay that local divers call one site Turtle City! This bay is very important for biodiversity and is protected by the marine park and under treaty as being a Ramsar Wetland of International Significance. This bay is also home to the Queen Conch, which is also very endangered and subject to poaching. Sea grass ecosystems are important to help slow water flow and trap sediments and along with the neighbouring mangroves help trap sediment. My role here is to maintain the lines around the sea grass beds making sure they are clean and buoyant so can be seen especially as the Bay is a popular site for windsurfers. Working with Funchi is great as if the windsurfers cross the lines to the sea grass bed they will be chased out by Funchi but everyone respects him and I doubt they would do I again!

The Sea grass beds seen from Sorobon beach resort.

Mangroves

In my next blog I will tell you more about nesting sea turtles on Bonaire and Klein Bonaire.

Please visit www.bonaireturtles.org for more information about STCB or join the facebook group for more news and updates at www.facebook.com/bonaireturtles.

Thanks for supporting me and the turtles.