Sea Turtle Conference!

As the rest of school prepares for midterms and my poor fellow music people spend their Sunday in juries, I am out in Maryland for the week! Remember those sea turtles I spent all summer watching? 

This week Robyn and I are attending the International Sea Turtle Society's 33rd Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. We both created posters about the work we did this summer in Honduras and we'll be presenting them at the conference. Robyn's poster is about the beach profiling that we did on Utila and in Cuero y Salado examining possible similarities between nesting beaches and potential nesting beaches as far as the slope of the beach and the vegetation on the beach. My poster is part of a special session the conference is just starting this year. The session has to do with the work volunteers do in sea turtle conservation so my poster is about the five volunteers (including Robyn and I) who worked with ProTECTOR in Honduras this summer, what they did, and the benefits of having volunteers. 

The conference website says they're expecting over 1000 participants from at least 75 countries for this year's conference. Seeing as the last conference I attended was all of about 80 people, this is going to be quite an experience!

Excused truancy for a conference! Yay!

The finished poster.

Tonight's Fact...

Tonight's fact (for whatever my two weeks of a sort of routine are worth) has been suspended on account of a self-imposed poster work session. Robyn and I are working on the posters that we'll be presenting at the 33rd Annual Sea Turtle Symposium in two weeks. As evidenced by this post, attention is beginning to fray after three hours of arranging text and photos and fighting with dangling participles (the participle is still winning at the moment...). However, I have not fully given up hope of getting more actual productive work done on my poster and thus will sign off and go back to arguing with a sentence that doesn't want to be written. 

Robyn working on her poster in our office in the
biology department.

But one more bit of info, first. In other news, I taught my first lab today. I am TA-ing one of the general studies science labs. 18 students, one slightly distracted TA, and 2 hours later, I'm hoping I managed to teach them something about plants!

Getting ready to teach lab this afternoon.

Confessions of a Researcher

After the adventures of the last few weeks, tonight was quite dull. Don't mistake that as being a disappointment, however. We appreciate dull nights as opposed to repeated ATV mishaps and, in the same vein, the sound of an ATV effortlessly starting up at 3 am is one of the most welcome sounds in the third-world country. 

We had another turtle tonight. She was found at midnight and, based on flipper tags, it seems Speedy has finally gotten her act together and laid. In the first nest, no less! Without needing to flipper tag or place data loggers or much of anything, it's quite easy and stress-free to watch a turtle nest. 

That said, I feel a few things should be addressed. Things that have been determined after many independent tests and over 700 cumulative hours spent on a beach. 

1. The job of sitting on a beach researching sea turtles has an almost romantic or glamorous sort of ring to it. Fallacy. Somehow, even sitting still on a beach at night, one sweats. The wind is the only thing between you and an extremely sweaty, bug eaten night. What about bug spray, you might ask. Well... 

2. I'm not actually sure where bug sprays were tested. However, I and two other researchers will attest that they were not tested by sitting on a tropical beach for 10 hours every night, 6 nights a week. Nearly 100% DEET sprays seem to have an effect against mosquitos but not sandflies. And three bug bites on my butt are testimony against the REI employee's recommendation of Permethrin on clothing to keep bugs away. 

3. Under the aforementioned circumstances, three very bored researchers can come up with some creative things to do, or propose to do. For instance, our list of "Things to do with 10 hours on the beach" currently includes items such as, "learn to yodel," "do yoga," and "memorize Shakespeare." Things that have been done include "turning sheets into sails," "sing-alongs of Wicked," and "dramatic, live readings of Shakespeare."

I suppose the real confession has to come in that, while we'll whine and complain our way through nights on that small stretch of beach, we really only do so because there's not much else to do. Also, my fellow undergrad slave and I really wouldn't choose something else to do with our summer vacation (although we're glad a thesis isn't hanging on finicky, crazy turtles...). Maybe that makes us crazy, but if you're thinking of telling us we're nuts, you certainly wouldn't be the first and most likely not the last either.

TWO TURTLES!!

The last of the data loggers and the last satellite tag have been launched! We needed one more turtle to finish off the initial part of Lindsey's research and we got TWO!! 

At 9:10 pm, we found a turtle in the bushes about 20 yards from our camp. She was already in the process of digging a hole and we soon realized that this was not a turtle we had seen before (no flipper tags). At 9:20 pm, Robyn walked back to the camp to grab supplies and stopped short 5 yards from where we had been sitting on the sand. She peered into the bushes for a moment, then returned to Lindsey and I and whispered that there was another turtle. Sure enough, crashing through the bushes and headed straight for our tarp was a second female. Soon, we established that this, too, was a new female. Then started the entertaining portion of the evening since, as Lindsey put it, "We don't have protocol for this!" 

I was told off to babysit the motions of the second turtle while the other three measured the first turtle, who had started to lay by this time. Turtle One finished laying, was tagged, and had returned to the water by 10 pm. Meanwhile, Turtle Two had rejected her first hole and was wandering through camp, following a similar path to Speedy. Shortly after the others joined me, she gave up on hole number two and wandered off towards the woods on the other side of camp. By 10:45, Turtle Two was laying and we were frantically mixing epoxy to attach the satellite tag to her carapace (the first turtle had too many barnacles on her shell for us to affix the tag). Around 11:15, Lindsey had finished attaching the tag and noted that, as Turtle Two was beginning to cover her eggs, we might have to hold her for 15 minutes to allow the epoxy to dry before she returned to the ocean. However, we needn't have worried. Turtle Two stuck around for another hour, continuing to thoroughly cover her eggs. 

Eventually, we got both nests uncovered again, the eggs counted and returned, and the nests recovered. The last set of data loggers went into Turtle One's nest. Finally, at 2 am, we headed home. 

Last night was fantastic. We concluded that it was nature making up for the terrible night Lindsey and Robyn had the night before--no wind, no turtles, and a bee attack (I won't do the full tale justice so I'll let them tell it: Lindsey's blog, Robyn's blog)  

Enjoy the pictures of TURTLES!!! 

Myself, Robyn, and Lindsey with the second turtle.

Flipper tagging the turtle and taking identification
photos.

Recording data

Activating the data loggers to record nest temperature

Hawksbill eggs. Turtle eggs look and feel remarkably
like ping pong balls, in case you were wondering.

Night Life

I'm becoming nocturnal. Unfortunately, the turtles haven't been showing up. Hawksbill Sea Turtles generally nest up to four times in a season, with each laying being around 15 days apart. This entire week, we've been expecting the first turtle Lindsey tagged. We're giving up hope of her returning, however, and are, instead, beginning to hope that Picky shows up on Monday night. If we can get just one more nest fitted with data loggers and one more turtle satellite tagged, we'll be able to stop spending every night on the beach. JUST ONE! 

In the meantime, our circadian rhythms are getting completely messed up. We're becoming more accustomed to staying up late on the beach and it's getting harder to sleep out there. I'm convinced that beach gets more uncomfortable every night. So, after having last night off and not being able to sleep till far too long after midnight, I've given up the idea of keeping any semblance of normalcy in my sleep schedule. As such, this comic seems appropriate.

Credit to: xkcd

According to this scheme, my body is currently living in Honduras and my internal clock is located somewhere on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (assuming an 8 am wake up time). My roommate appears to be about two hours east of me, possibly in Korea. 

Mystery Solved

If you recall, a couple weeks ago, we had a visit from Ninja Turtle. This resulted in The Mystery of the Disappearing Turtle. Well, Nancy Drews that we are, we've solved the case. Or maybe Lindsey can be Nancy and Robyn and I can be the Hardy Boys... but I digress. 


Tonight and last night we had the same turtle visit the beach. No, she has not yet laid eggs. She has, however, dug plenty of nests. Last night, she dug five body pits, three of which had nests as well. On her first crawl tonight, she dug ten body pits with nine having nests. When she showed up again around 2 am, she dug four more body pits with three nests. This turtle is insane. We watched her for no less than five hours, tonight alone. 


The manner in which she showed up tonight was also unusual. Around 9:30, Scott (a BICA volunteer), Robyn, Lindsey, and I were laying around talking on our tarp on the beach per normal. Scott abruptly sat up and stared toward the ocean, bewildered to see a stick heading towards him. It was then that he noticed a turtle was making its way up the beach and had the stick somehow wedged between her carapace and flipper (we still don't know how that occurred, the stick fell off shortly after). Not wanting to startle her, we simply hunkered down flat on the tarp as the turtle crawled by not three feet away. She then proceeded to crawl to a palm tree even closer to the tarp and begin digging. When she got tired of that hole, she moved further towards the woods and closer to the hammock where Gene (a BICA worker) was sleeping. This process continued for the next three hours. Robyn, Scott, and I got a spectacular view of the turtle when she crawled back towards the tarp, passing a foot from us and bumping into the duffle bag Scott was crouched behind. Of all the crazy turtles we have encountered on the beach, we feel this is the craziest. We also feel that we have substantial evidence against the local theory that a sea turtle, if it smells humans, will return spooked to the ocean. 


The solving of our mystery, though, comes with the witnessing of three exits from the beach. Namely, this is the fastest turtle we have ever seen. Last night, when Chel tried to touch her to put in a flipper tag, she bolted. I do mean bolted. It took a flying tackle from Lindsey and Robyn to lay hands on the turtle. When we finally let her go, she skittered down to the water faster than I would have thought possible. Same with the first exit tonight. The second exit was even more impressive since she charged down the beach, straight towards Scott, causing him to sprint (yes, I do mean sprint) out of her way. You're missing out if you've never seen a grown man run from a charging sea turtle. Scott maintains that she was also making some sort of hissing noise that he found more terrifying than her speed, which really doesn't help the amount of laughter we get from the situation. 


Back to our case. Normal sea turtle tracks show heavy drag marks in the middle from the carapace with very distinct marks from the front flippers on either side. When this turtle is moving so fast, however, hardly any carapace track can be seen and the flipper marks are widely spaced and indistinct. The flipper marks, in fact, look remarkably like the indentations made by our feet as we wander about the beach. Our theory is that our speedy turtle and ninja turtle are one and the same. If she bolted that first night, we could easily have heard just the briefest rustle as she moved out of the bushes and she would have been long gone in the ocean before we knew she had entirely left the beach. The other strange bit had been that we never found tracks of her leaving the beach. If she was moving fast, though, it seems plausible that we simply didn't know what to look for and obliterated the indistinct tracks the first time we walked through the area desperately trying to see where she'd gone. 


Case closed. 

Picky Turtle's Return

On the 3 am walk, Chel and I found turtle tracks. We could tell, via the flipper tags, that she was the same turtle that false crawled (came onto the beach without nesting) last night. Tonight, or rather this morning, she actually nested. When we found her, she had already dug out the hole and laid most her eggs. Since she was already tagged and photographed last night, that cut down on our work and, thus, the total amount of time we spent dealing with her. She laid 133 eggs and we collected the rest of our data without incident. Well, mostly without incident. We had some trouble getting our field scale to cooperate. When it finally gave us a reading, we realized that, in pushing buttons randomly, trying to make it work properly (this is, of course, the highly scientific and approved method of dealing with faulty/annoying equipment when the usual recourse of smacking the stupid thing is ill advised), we had recalibrated the scale so that each egg was reading roughly 1/5 of its actual weight. 


The work tonight, though, raised some other questions that have come up each time we see and interact with a turtle. The Bay Islands Conservation Association (BICA) has the unenviable job of trying to enforce conservation practices in Honduras. Honduras has some laws in place to protect endangered species, such as sea turtles, but laws are only as good as the enforcement and there is nearly a complete lack of such follow through. That is why institutions like BICA are important. BICA has volunteers during the day and night during turtle nesting season. A volunteer, like Chel, may be on the beach six nights a week. They certainly earn my respect for doing this with no real return. The issue we have run into is when some of these volunteers make themselves self-proclaimed turtle experts. 


We've been working with two people, specifically, who have some erroneous ideas. There are also a few practices we've observed that indicate the data that BICA has reported may in incomplete/inaccurate. The first problem we ran into was that Chel had not been informed of what Lindsey would be doing with turtles. When they first encountered one together, Chel freaked out because Lindsey started moving to place a satellite tag on the turtle, dug up the nest to weigh and measure eggs, and was using white light. They also had a disagreement on when a turtle should be flipper tagged and, so, the turtle left the beach with a sat tag and no flipper ID tag. Turns out, BICA's policy is to only tag during the nesting trance (a state the female experiences during laying) while the most current scientific opinion is that that is the only time the turtle should not be tagged. White vs. red light is also slightly contested among the scientific community but the majority say that white doesn't bother the turtles too much as long as you wait until it has begun nesting so you don't startle it off the beach before then. Since then, the professor has informed BICA of our full data collection process but the information never got all the way down the chain of command to Chel. Another man who volunteers on the beach, has expressed concern about making sure we are far enough away and downwind of the turtle so that it doesn't smell us and get scared off. First, as a marine reptile, it's likely sea turtles don't have the best sense of smell. Second, if they can smell, it's likely a turtle wouldn't be too worried by the scent of a human. Anyway, it is an interesting situation and one that is not simplified by some language barriers. 


I have some pictures of both sea turtles and the Rescue Diver course but have not yet had time to edit and upload due to the crazy schedule we've had for the last few days. We've been going to the beach at night, of course, coming back and sleeping for a few hours, then getting up and promptly leaving for the dive center, getting back just in time to leave for the beach again. However, the course ends tomorrow so I promise pictures very, very soon!

Picky Turtle

Let me tell you the story of the picky turtle. For the purposes of this story, Chel (the BICA worker) and Lindsey will be referred to as the Head Honchos. Robyn and I comprise the Lowly Undergrads. Collectively, we are The Researchers. Slight details have been modified from the original to fit this format. And now, Once Upon a Time... 


Time
6:30   The Researchers arrive on the beach and settle down in their usual spots. 
7:03   The sky threatens rain on The Researchers and those on the beach quickly pack up and head for the tent. 
7:20   The rain ends and The Researchers move back to the beach. 
8:00   The rain recommences and The Researchers pack gear again and move to the tent. 
8:12   The rain comes down with a vengeance and The Researchers in the tent discover that the rain fly (actually a tarp strung between trees) has some structural issues causing rain to enter the tent. 
8:51   The rain ends.
9:03   The Head Honchos, walking the beach, find a turtle in the act of digging a nest. 
9:10   Head Honcho C and Lowly Undergrad A settle down to watch the turtle finish digging the nest hole. 
9:20   Lowly Undergrad R and Head Honcho L arrive. Lowly Undergrad A's foot is asleep and the turtle has decided hole site #2 is no good (hole site #1 was abandoned before The Researchers arrived on scene). 
9:33   The turtle has decided hole site #3 is no good either. The Researchers wait.
9:36   Digging begins at hole site #4. The Researchers wait.
9:40   The Researchers know that turtles sometimes dig multiple holes before finally settling on a nest site but they are unsure of how many nest attempts are normal...
9:55   The turtle is dubbed Picky Turtle. She joins the ranks of 10 O'Clock Turtle, 3 O'Clock Turtle, and Ninja Turtle. 
10:02 The Lowly Undergrads trek back to the tent for their forgotten rain gear as the sky lets loose yet again.
10:12   Hole site #4 is, apparently, not good enough for Picky Turtle. 
10:13   It becomes evident to the Head Honchos that Picky Turtle is not going to nest and motions begin to flipper tag her before she makes it back to the ocean. 
10:14   Lowly Undergrad R becomes a turtle wrestler. 
10:17   Flipper tagging is complete and The Researchers step back to wait. 
10:21   Picky Turtle has finally found her way out of the bushes and is making tracks towards the beach. 
10:27  The Researchers bid Picky Turtle, "Adieu," and begin erasing the tracks she made. 
10:31   It is discovered that hole site #1 was actually more likely hole site #3, adjusting the holes The Researchers witnessed to hole sites #4, #5, and #6. 
10:40  The Researchers load equipment onto ATVs to return to their real beds.  

Anti-Ninja Turtle

Ariana and I woke up the other morning to find this note from Robyn. I believe it is fairly self-explanitory. We finally had a non-ninja turtle! (Yes, that is what the disappearing turtle has been dubbed: The Ninja Turtle.) This was actually a female which laid just a few weeks ago on our beach. At that time, Lindsey was able to put a satellite tag on her but, due to a disagreement with BICA personnel over when to tag the turtle (during or following the nesting trance), the turtle had left without any identifying flipper tags. So Lindsey was also extremely happy to be able to finally have flipper tags on the turtle which had been wandering about with her high-tec satellite tag on its back. 

Robyn and I are embarking on a new adventure called the PADI Rescue Diver course. I, of course, have already taken the course but am helping on the course she's in as a DMT (divemaster in training). The fun part of Rescue Diver is all the scenarios which you do to learn how to deal with various diving emergencies. The fun part as a DMT is that we get to be the divers in trouble and make it as difficult as possible for the students to rescue us. Stay posted; I'm sure there will be some good stories and pictures.

And now, enjoy a couple more pictures from another beach outing Robyn, Ariana, and I took this afternoon. 

Yes, envy us. We're spending our summer on a tropical
island with 82 degree water.

I promise, we really are working hard!

The Mystery of the Disappearing Turtle

We’re beginning to settle into a routine here on Utila. While we’re essentially doing the exact same work as at Cuero, the mechanics of it look very different. Instead of walking the beach for 6-7 hours each night and covering around 8 miles, we sit--literally--on the beach for 10 hours. The main stretch of beach that we’re monitoring is all of 30 meters long and takes a grand total 2:16 minutes to walk (yes, we timed it). There is a longer stretch of beach which we walk twice a night, usually, and takes about 15 minutes to cover. We bring out sheets to lay on and iPods and Kindles to entertain ourselves and sit on the beach thinking up everything one could do with 10 free hours if they weren't in the middle of the night on a beach in Honduras. 

Now, on to the subject of the titular turtle. Yes, we had a turtle last night! It crawled onto the beach around midnight last night and alerted us to its presence by creating a ruckus in the woods near our "camping" spot. We quickly got data loggers and sheets ready and watched quietly while the turtle dug a hole for a nest. Then, it appeared that the turtle had given up the idea of nesting and was going to crawl back to the ocean (a behavior which is called a false crawl). We began looking to stop the turtle so that we could put a flipper tag on her before she left. That was when the turtle, easily a 100 pound female Hawksbill, disappeared completely. Yes, as far as the poor researchers are concerned, this particular sea turtle has vanished from the face of this earth. As Lindsey said, this was a development we weren't expecting.