Since the training weeks are now over, my schedule is becoming more consistent. From now on, I plan to post about once per week.
This week we worked with the kids in the community twice.
It was the first time I actually got to interact with the children and learn some of their names. The first was to make decorations for the library – where all of our sessions with the children are held in town. The education coordinator for the STC, Georgina, had the fun idea of bringing the jungle inside, so we helped the kids craft birds, butterflies and flowers out of recycled plastic bottles and cardboard boxes. They were then painted and attached to string to hang from the ceiling. Afterward, we played futbol and caballo, carrying the kids on our back and racing down the sidewalk. As the tallest person in our group, some of the kids began calling me Michael Jordan – whom I bear no resemblance to, but the nickname made me feel accepted. Either that or they just wanted a ride on my back because they started climbing on me like a tree, and at one point I had 6 kids clinging on to me yelling ‘caballo!, caballo!’
Nerine, Emma, Hannah, Rob and George with the kids.
This little man was so content on painting. I forget his name.
For the second project, we invited the children to the station to educate them about the threats to sea turtles. Each week, we give them some sort of class or project on environmental education. These environmental education sessions are meant to teach them about their impacts on the environment to hopefully go back to their families and help them make more sustainable decisions.
Each group had a scenario in the year 2050 that their designated species of sea turtle went extinct. The species of turtles included green, hawksbill, leatherback and loggerhead – all of which are found in Tortuguero, though the loggerhead is extremely rare.
Each group researched threats to the species endangerment and created a newspaper article explaining how these threats caused the demise of the species. Our group had the hawksbill sea turtle whose threats I mentioned in an earlier post. The project was solely in Spanish, so you can imagine I had some difficulty, but luckily I had two research assistants in my group that helped a great deal – Nerine from Granada and Clara from Chile. The project will be finished next week, and the children will present it to the other groups.
Working on our poster of the Hawksbill going extinct in 2050.
This week also brought my first turtle tagging experience.
We began our night patrol on one section of the beach at 8:00 p.m. It rained for a bit, I was hot, my feet were wet because I didn’t run away from the wave quickly enough and I was tired. On night patrols we will walk back and forth on our section of the beach for 4 hours. If we don’t find a turtle, we walk the entire time. If we find a lot of turtles, we walk very little. Tonight was one of the nights we thought we weren’t going to see a turtle. After 2.5 hours passed, we decided to walk on the other section of the beach. When 30 minutes passed, we took a 10-minute break, called it quits and planned to return to the station. We sat down on a log and the field coordinator, Raul, went to use the bathroom in the bushes. All of a sudden he sprinted in front of us and started rummaging through the bag to get the red light. It turns out he was unknowingly standing next to a nesting green turtle.
The tide was so high, the tracks were washed away, and she climbed over a small dune and nested on the other side where we couldn’t see. We were so lucky we just happened to rest right there and end our patrol. It was also a full moon on Friday, the 13th, which made it event weirder.
We waiting until she laid her eggs and started covering them, which is the prime opportunity to ‘work’ the turtle. Since this was what we call a ‘new nester’ (a turtle who has never been tagged), we needed to prepare the tagging equipment. It was Addie’s and my turn to tag, so we each got a front flipper. Mine was tag #131911 in the left flipper. After the tagging, each person practiced taking measurements – the maximum straight carapace length (SCLmax) and the minimum curved carapace length (CCLmin).
Addie getting the SCLmax during training.
As I watched the measurements, I started to get eaten alive by biting sand flies – the single worst experience with insects I’ve had in my life. It was so uncomfortable. They bit my legs, arms, neck, and face and flew in to my nose and eyes. I learned the hard way that one should always wear pants, long sleeves and something to cover your face when working with a turtle at night. The next day, I went in to town to buy pants, long sleeves and a bandana for the next night patrol.
On a more recent patrol, I watched as other RAs got the chance to work the turtle. When taking the CCLmin, the person taking the measurement must remove the sand. This night was special, though. When Clara removed the sand, the turtle lit up bright blue. The sand contained bioluminescent organisms, and flashed their bioluminescent chemicals when disturbed. It was just like the pictures you see of the waves crashing at night and turn a bright blue – only this was on a turtle’s back.
Again, unfortunately cameras are not allowed on the beach at night, so I have no photos to share. Meh.
Tortuguero Traveler 