Sea Turtle Conservation in Greece

Last day with the Katelios Group

Looking back on my summer experience, I revel in the memories that I have from both programs and the valuable friendships that I have formed between colleagues and mentors. This summer has been a very special formative and learning experience for me. It has opened new doors for my future and taught me many things.

I find it difficult to compare my experiences at ARCHELON and the Katelios Group, because although I was doing the same work and research in sea turtle conservation, the atmosphere and the execution of the project was very different. In the Katelios Group, on the island of Kefalonia, I saw few turtles and few nests. Since there was no natural predation in Kefalonia, the work we did was mostly in public awareness (PA). We had shifts specially designed to approach people and tell them of our work, thereby awakening and/or increasing their sensitivity and concern for the turtles. We only monitored 3km of central beach, so the number of volunteers fluctuated with a maximum of approximately 15 volunteers at a time. We lived in little apartments, made our own food and although community life existed, it was natural for people to tend to fend primarily for themselves. That’s not to say that we did not do things together, however the circumstances were very different to those in Kyparissia.

Team America celebrates 4th July at ARCHELON

In Kyparissia with ARECHELON, things were quite different. From the start, we monitored around 10km of central beach, which required an average of 25 volunteers. However at the height of the season we had around 40 volunteers for a while. We had a lot of turtle activity and many nests, all of which had to be protected from foxes, dogs and birds, which would dig up the eggs. This was hard work and limited our PA work to kiosk shifts. In ARCHELON we lived on a campsite in tents, ate communal meals and spent almost every waking hour with other volunteers. This helped to raise camp morale and liven up camp life so that we were never bored or lacking something to do. Everyone looked out for everyone else and we all grew very close.

Camp Life at ARCHELON

I appreciate both projects for the lessons they’ve taught me and the people I had a chance to meet and work with. I wouldn’t choose to change anything in my summer or do anything differently. I think both projects are effective given their situations and the work is done with great enthusiasm and ample guidance. ARCHELON receives more support and recognition internationally than the Katelios Group does, however that does not stop people flocking to both projects from all over the world.

My summer has provided me with an opportunity to meet people of many different nationalities and backgrounds and engage in life in a multicultural micro-community that would be difficult to reconstruct.

Last Night at ARCHELON

I can remember many times where language was a barrier. This was a barrier easily broken and used instead as a source of merriment when sentences were misconstrued or words meant different things in different places. We also had people of many age groups: from teenage years to late 40s. But the age gap didn’t stop of from growing close and sharing our stories.

I’ve also gained a lot of insight into my future, my career and the work I want to do.  All in all, I look back on my summer as an experience I wouldn’t trade or change for the world. I enjoyed every moment of it, through laughter and tears and I’m left with the special memories.

hatchlings on boxing shift

Even though the summer was winding down and I was starting to get ready to leave ARCHELON, the work we had to do did not let up. My last week and a half with ARCHELON was especially busy as I worked, in addition to my scheduled shifts, to help train new arrivals for morning survey and boxing shifts and explained how we record the data and why. I was also put in charge of a group of Greek Scouts that came to do community service since I was the only Greek speaker on camp at the time. The scouts worked hard to clean up garbage along the beach and clear away any debris that had piled up in front of the nests so that hatchlings would have a clear path to the sea. They managed to fill around 20 bags of garbage and cleared the paths in front of hundreds of nests in the span of an hour. When they were done with their work, I delivered a slideshow presentation about ARCHELON and the work volunteers do. All of the kids were enthusiastic and asked many questions afterwards about the requirements to volunteer and what they could do to help out. It was a very successful morning!

hatchlings on boxing shift

I had a boxing shift on Friday, August 6^th. Many people have described boxing shifts as “journeys into the dark depths of the soul” where sleep deprivation can make you see or think the strangest things. I was on shift with Jess, one of my good friends from Scotland. Boxes are placed over nests under direct influence of light (from hotels, tavernas or street lights) so that any hatchlings that come up at night are trapped in the box instead of coming out and heading in the wrong direction toward the light. During a boxing shift, one checks all the boxed nests for hatchlings. If a hatchling is found in the box, it is placed in a bucket full of sand and then taken to a release point further along the beach that is dark.

Hatchlings on boxing shift

Jess and I left camp at 9:30pm and passed by the information kiosk to pick up tourists that were interested in coming with us on our first check to see hatchlings. Since we had a mix of Greek and foreign tourists, Jess would go check each of the boxes placed over the nests while I explained things to the tourists and answered any questions. By the end of the first box check, Jess had picked up 10 hatchlings. We showed these to the tourists, who were allowed to take pictures without flash, and for about ten minutes the hatchlings were fawned over by adults and children alike. Finally we managed to take the hatchlings back, say goodbye to the tourists and go release the hatchlings in the dark so they could make their way to the sea.

Hatchling on its way to the sea

The boxes on the nests have to be checked every 1.5 hours from 10pm until 5:30am (a total of 6 checks), so you get between 30-45 minutes of sleep between checks if you are lucky. This amount of sleep is not enough to be rested, but it is enough to disorient you and make you feel slightly crazed!  There were quite a few times during the night where I would wake up imagining things and spending the rest of the box check trying to figure out and convince myself whether my imaginings were real or not.

Hatchling on its way to the sea

In the course of the night, Jess and I found and released 20 hatchlings. It was frustrating when we had checks that yielded nothing because then we would wish we had just kept sleeping. But then when we found a few hatchlings during a check our excitement was renewed and we would spend a few minutes at the release point just watching a waiting as the babies made their way to the water and got swept away by the waves. When we finally got back to the camp at 6:30am, stumbling, groggy and a little grumpy, we found morning survey just getting ready to leave. It was a strange feeling to be going to bed when others were just getting up to start their day!

Pipped hatchling

I had my last morning survey on Tuesday, August 10^th. I remember getting up at 6am and feeling a mixture of excitement, trepidation and nostalgia. It was my last shift with ARCHELON! As I got the bag ready and prepped my team, I told everyone that I really wanted to find a new nest on my last survey. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, because they would rather not spend a lot of time digging in the sun looking for eggs. Within 5 minutes of starting morning survey we found one little hatchling making its way to the sea, so one of my team stayed behind to shield it a bit from the sun. We came across about 25 nests in total that morning that were hatching for the first time, so we had to write out the hatch date on the nest stones and nest stick and fill in the date that excavation was due.

A predated Nest

I did end up getting my new nest, and I found the eggs pretty quick so my team was happy too that they didn’t have to dig for hours! I felt ecstatic to be ending my morning with a new nest, especially since we are right at the end of nesting season now and new nests are getting few and far between. We found two more nests later along the beach, although they weren’t new. One was a nest found by predation, and the other nest was found by hatching. So I got to see it all on my last morning survey! We had hatchlings, adult tracks, all three types of possible nests to find and we were done by 9:30am. It was a great way to end my season with ARCHELON!

Hatchling!

Hatchling!

I had a funny experience on morning survey the other day. I came across a nest that had hatched and found one little baby hatchling stuck on its back on top of the nest. It was already quite hot and the hatchling was struggling a little bit trying to flip itself back over but without any success and getting quite tired in the process. We decided that it would be best to rebury it close to the surface so that it could come up later in the day when it was cooler, rather than flipping it over on its back and it getting dehydrated and dying before it got to the sea. We dug a little hole about 15 cm deep and placed the hatchling right-side up inside it. Within a few seconds, the hatchling had managed to overturn itself again, so we had doubts about it making it to the sea without any incidents. But we set it right side up, and buried it so that it faced the sea and would come up at a good angle from the hole. I don’t know if it made it out ok, but I certainly hope so!

Close-up of hatchling head

I had a very eventful morning on O Sector on August 1^st. I was leading the morning survey, with Mario from Spain and Andy from England on my team. Nesting season is winding down now, so we have stopped doing night surveys and most days we only expect one or two nests on every beach sector. However, that morning we were in for a surprise because we had 5 nests!

We split up on the beach so I was walking close to the shore, Mario was walking half-way up the beach and Andy was walking at the top of beach checking all the nests for predations, attempted predations and hatchling tracks. About ten minutes in to morning survey, I was looking ahead on the beach and saw what looked very suspiciously of a nest that had been dug up. When we got closer, I saw that I was right: a few eggshells had been strewn about and there was a small pit around the egg chamber with some more eggs exposed. Since the nest had not been found previously, we call it a nest “found by predation”. We give it a nest number and take all the necessary measurements for triangulation and GPS as we would with a normal nest. We also protect the nest, but we don’t hammer in the bamboo because after the first day when the eggs have been laid, any strong vibrations can affect the eggs, cause a separation of the amnion from the chorion and stop growth.

Little Hatchling

The nest we found was O156^FBP. We counted 10 predated shells and then I found three more eggs that had been pierced and cracked open but the embryos inside were still alive. It was the strangest experience holding a cracked egg in the palm of my hand and feeling the embryo (quite obviously in the late stage of gestation and very close to hatching) moving about in its egg. We can’t rebury cracked eggs with the original clutch because bacteria from one broken egg can contaminate the whole clutch and kill all the eggs. So we transferred the three live embryos still in their eggs about 15 cm in front of the original clutch and buried them there, so that they were still protected when we put on the grid. Although the chances of these hatchlings surviving are slim given that their eggs were broken, I hope that they are close enough to hatching that they may pull through.

Nest Relocation

I’m still feeling a bit of a shock from picking up the first of the broken eggs, thinking automatically that it must be dead because it was broken, and feeling movement. My team was just as surprised and in awe as I was. We all sat there wondering how the embryos had been lucky enough to survive the trauma of having their egg broken and staring incredulously at these small, growing embryos that still exhibited a spark of life. I was definitely left speechless from the experience!

Nest relocation

Continuing on our morning survey, we came across another four nests, two of which we had to relocate. Both relocations were effective in just under 7 minutes. One of the nests had 56 eggs and the other had 84 eggs; low numbers compared to the 100-120 egg average. We generally assume that as the season draws to a close, the female turtles will lay fewer eggs, so these numbers aren’t unusual. I do remember another group telling me that they found a nest that needed to be relocated and it only had 4 eggs in it! It is no wonder that the turtle did not want to travel far up the beach and exert all her energy just to lay four eggs.

Since we have reached the point of overlap between nesting season and hatching season, where not much is happening on either front, morning surveys are relatively short. They still remain exciting however! Our surge of 5 nests on O Sector was definitely a pleasant surprise. With only 10 days left in my time with the project, I am looking forward to doing and seeing as much as I can. We have about 10 nest excavations coming up this week for nests that have hatched or have exceeded an incubation time of 70 days and I’m looking forward to participating in as many of those as possible. We are also starting to “box” nests located in front of brightly lit hotels, so there is a night boxing shift from 10pm to 6am where you check the boxes placed over the nests over 1.5 hour intervals. If any hatchlings are found in the box, they are transferred to a bucket and released further down the beach where there are no lights and they can make their way to the water without getting disoriented. I have one of those shifts this week, so hopefully I will get to see a few hatchlings!

Night Survey with Backof

Hatchling

On my first night survey at ARCHELON, I was scheduled to work with Tom Backof and Hannah Sintek. Tom was working on an independent research project in which he fastened data loggers and a radio transmitter to a turtle. This was used to acquire data about the turtle between nesting, such as where she migrated to, as well as water temperature and pressure per unit time, which gave valuable information about the turtle’s life in the sea, depth of dives, and possible sleeping habits. I found all of this very interesting, so accompanying Tom on my first night survey was definitely a privilege.

We came across a turtle pretty early in the night. While she laid her eggs, Tom was busy setting up his equipment and giving Hannah and me last-minute directions. The turtle was untagged, so the plan was to tag her after installing the data logger and transmitter. As soon as the turtle finished laying and started covering her nest, we got to work. First, we injected a PIT tag into the turtle’s shoulder and then Tom drilled two holes into the turtle’s carapace, one in the middle of the back end and one off to the right side. He fed a needle with surgical tubing through the hole, passed fishing line through it and fastened the data logger to the hole on the right side. When he started to do the same for the transmitter on the back hole, the needle with surgical tubing wouldn’t fit through the hole. So we opened up the hole a little wider with the drill and tried again. It still did not work; three needles broke and we had to make some more. (By needle, I basically mean a thin piece of fishing wire tied to the surgical tubing, which can be fed through the hole and used to pull the surgical tubing through.)

At this point, the turtle was getting really antsy. She was finishing up with covering and camouflaging and getting ready to go back to the sea. As Hannah and Tom worked to make some more needles, I turned around just in time to see the turtle leave her nest. “Uh, Tom do you want me to restrain her?” “Yes! Try to keep her quiet and high on the beach so I can get the transmitter on.” Unlike in Kefalonia, ARCHELON does not allow turtles to be flipped but we do restrain them by carefully placing hands over their eyes and gently but firmly pushing their head into the sand. So I set off after the turtle to restrain her. She was quiet in the beginning, but as Tom finally got his transmitter on and fastened, she decided she had had enough. She started turning around in circles and using her flippers to smack my arms out of the way. She even tried to bit me now and then, opening and closing her mouth as I kept myself at a safe enough distance while still able to hold her eyes closed.

After a frustrating 15 minutes of being jostled around by the turtle, Backof managed to wrap up the installation of his equipment, get a metal tag into her front flipper and finally we relaxed. We didn’t get any carapace measurements or put in a plastic tag, but the night was eventful enough and I ended up with quite a few scrapes and scratches along my arms from being smacked around by the fed up turtle. It was definitely worth it though!

My first nest excavation

Excavation

Nest excavations happen 9 days after the nest first hatches, or 70 days after the lay date if there is not hatchling activity. We excavated our first nest, A1 (the first nest laid on A Sector) on July 22^nd. Tom Riggall, our monitoring project leader, led the excavation and handled the eggs to show us how it is done and explain the process. A1 turned out to be a very smelly nest. The bottom layer of eggs had contracted some sort of bacteria and rotted, but most of the eggs hatched successfully.

As soon as we cleared away the top layer of sand, Tom took over and dug out the rest of the egg chamber. We cleared a flat area of sand next to the nest, where Tom deposited all the eggs and eggshells, which we then classified and laid out in rows of ten. First we distinguished the hatched eggs from unhatched eggs; the hatched eggs are clean and dry on the inside, whereas unhatched eggs are yolky and containing traces of blood. Then within the category of unhatched eggs, we separate the eggs into three groups: unhatched eggs with no visible embryos, unhatched eggs with dead embryos, and unhatched eggs with live embryos (this last category gets reburied to hatch later). The category of unhatched eggs with dead embryos gets subdivided further into eyespots, early, middle and late stages of growth. We also write down the number of live hatchlings found in the top 10cm of the nest, live hatchlings in the rest of the nest, dead hatchlings, and live or dead pipped hatchlings, which have come half-way out of the egg.

Once Tom had cleared everything out of the egg chamber, we recorded the bottom depth of the nest and began to classify the eggs. We came across 70 hatched eggs, 36 unhatched eggs with no visible embryos, 40unhatched eggs with dead embryos and three dead hatchlings. The whole excavation with Tom’s explanation took between half an hour and forty minutes and even though it was smelly (Tom said most nests are usually much cleaner than that one!) it was worthwhile and very educational.

Inundations and my first live hatchling

A few days ago we had some stormy weather (but no rain) with a very high tide. A lot of nests on all sectors of the beach got inundated or partly washed over by the waves. This created more work for the morning survey teams, as we had to check every nest and dig it out if it had been heavily inundated. I was on A Sector that morning, which is the beach with the highest concentration of nests of all the sectors that we monitor. By the end of morning survey, we had dug out 41 inundated nests and 18 nests that had been partly washed over by the waves. Some nests were buried under at least 25 cm of sand, while others were left almost exactly as they were. With all washed and inundated nests, you have to make sure that the sand under the grid is loosened so that when the sand dries it doesn’t form a hard sheet that could prevent hatchlings from exiting the nest.

Baby hatchling

About three-fourths into morning survey, we came across a nest that had just hatched the day before, A4. When we found it, it had be inundated and heavily predated by a dog from the front, where the waves had dragged out some of the sand. My team and I had been eagerly looking for the nest because we were hoping to see some hatchling tracks and if possible a few straggling hatchlings. When we saw all the paw prints and the empty eggshells, we all pretty much fell quiet because we didn’t think any hatchlings had made it the water during the night. I sent Emma to go dig a hole at the back of the beach to bury the empty eggshells and Maria, Mario and I started collecting all the eggshells we could find to get a count on the number of eggs that had been predated. Since the nest had hatched the day before, we had to conduct a mini excavation and differentiate between hatched and predated eggs. Maria and I sorted the shells and then I decided to check the nest for anything that we had missed. I found a few more empty shells and just as I was withdrawing my hand from the nest, I felt some movement against one of my fingers and seconds later a little hatchling head popped out of the sand! I was so shocked and excited that I breathlessly yelled hatchling to the rest of my team and we all gathered around to marvel at the little baby. It was so small, but it was incredible to see it fully formed with all its scutes and flippers and a tiny egg tooth. We buried the hatchling again to allow it to come out at night when it was cool rather than let it get dehydrated and possibly die walking in the sun.

Live hatchling

Seeing the live hatchling made us all feel a lot better. When we counted the predated eggs, we found 24 hatched eggs and 20 predated ones, so we felt even better that quite a few had made it out of the nest. A live hatchling is so different from an adult turtle. In terms of size, the difference is tremendous but hatchlings also look so fragile and soft compared to the adults, which have such big, hard shells and so much strength. Finding a predated nest that is still hatching and encountering a live hatchling within the nest really put things into perspective for me. Our conservation work is definitely making a difference and giving more hatchlings a chance of survival. At the moment, the beach that we monitor here in Kyparissia has 815 nests. This is the largest number of nests that these beaches have seen since monitoring began; we broke the highest record of 779 nests and we expect to surpass 850 if not 900 nests by the end of the season as we encounter nests missed on morning surveys that we find by hatching or by predation.  This surge in the number of turtles we have seen and tagged and the number of nest we have had this year can only be attributed to the conservation work that started on this beach 25 years ago. We are in fact making a difference here, and the turtle population of Kyparissia is increasing. Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Crete are experiencing a plateau in the decline of turtles, and they hope to see an increase soon, but here in Kyparissia we are already noticing the benefits of our work. It is so exciting to know that we are all making a positive difference and it is having fantastic effects!

A preserved female turtle

This is very late in coming, but here are some interesting turtle facts that I have learned during my time with the Katelios Group and ARCHELON! First of all, there are 7-8 species of sea turtle in the world; the discrepancy in classification arose because some scientists consider the Green (Chelonia mydas) and Black (Chelonia agassizii) turtle to be the same species, while others think they are not. All species of sea turtle are classified as endangered on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List. Only three species of sea turtle are found in the Mediterranean: the Loggerhead (Caretta caretta), Green (Chelonia mydas) and Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacca). The Leatherback is a visiting species that nests in the Atlantic, while the Green turtle nests in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Loggerhead nests primarily in Greece.

Sea turtles are highly migratory and travel long distances between nesting seasons. Sea turtles tagged in Greece have been found as far away as Libya and Tunisia during the winter months. Males and females begin to mate in late April through to early June. Mating sometimes occurs during migration back to nesting beaches but most often sea turtles will mate once they reach the coast where they nest. A female sea turtle will mate with more than one male and she has the capacity to store the sperm, which she uses to individually fertilize her eggs when she wants. This increases the diversity of the turtle population by maximizing the gene pool.

A replica of a turtle's nest

Once nesting season begins in late May or early June, female Loggerheads come onto the beach and lay nests between 20-50 cm deep with an average number of eggs between 100-120 although nests have been found with more or less. Female sea turtles can lay up to five nests per season with an interval between nests of approximately 2 weeks. Once the female lays her eggs, she returns to the sea and never sees her nest again. Male Loggerheads never return to the beach after they hatch.

Since sea turtles are reptiles, they have what is called “Temperature Dependant Sex Determination” or TSD. This means that the sex of a turtle is not defined when the female lays her eggs, but rather is determined by the temperature of the sand during the incubation period (between 50-60 days although nests in the beginning and end of the nesting season can incubate for up to 80 days) and can fluctuate in the early stages. Warm temperatures yield female turtles while cool temperatures yield males.

A close-up of a metal tag

Once a nest hatches, there is usually a hatching success rate of 80%. The eggs that don’t hatch are usually unfertilized, although some eggs don’t make it through the gestation period due to genetic mutations and some eggs hatch but the hatchlings die while still in the nest. Usually, hatchlings will engage in cooperative digging once they hatch. This means that hatchlings will wait in the nest until a few eggs have hatched and then they will all make their way to the surface together, where they wait until they detect a drop in temperature, which alerts them that it is safe and cool enough to make their way to the sea.

The long tail on a male Loggerhead turtle

It takes about 20 years for hatchlings to reach sexual maturity and during that time they grow from 4 cm and 16 grams to an average length of 1 meter and 110-140 kg.  During their juvenile years, birds predate Loggerheads when they come to the surface for air as do large fish, sharks and there are major threats from boats and fishing nets. This is why only 1 or 2 in 1000 sea turtles (approximately) reaches sexual maturity. It is really hard to tell the sex of a sea turtle before it reaches sexual maturity. However, once it does, males have a long, large tail and two long claws on their front flippers, which help them grab onto the females during mating. Female turtles have short tails and very small from claws.

The long front claw of a male Loggerhead turtle

Loggerheads are the omnivores of sea turtles and will eat anything they find available from sea grass to fish and jellyfish although their “favorite” food seems to be crustaceans. The Loggerhead has the capacity to dive up to 200 m deep and hold its breath for hours; sea turtles have been observed to sleep for 8 hours underwater. Their ability to hold their breath for such extended periods of time is attributed to their lack of a diaphragm (making inhaling and exhaling active) and the fact that their heart is divided into two atria and one ventricle, which causes “incomplete double circulation” and allows high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood.

A lot of the information and facts here have been taken from:

Turtle Facts, A publication of ARCHELON the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece (Third Edition), 2004

I have been with ARCHELON for two full weeks now and it has certainly been interesting! In terms of shifts, the rota works pretty much the same way as with the Katelios Group. There are four sectors of beach that we monitor, each around 2km long.

Sunset

We have a night survey from 11pm-3:30am approximately which only covers A sector and half of B and O sector. Then there is a morning survey from 6am until whenever you get done which covers all of A, B, C, and O sectors. Finally there are four 3-hour sets of kiosk shifts from 12am-12pm in the village of Kalo Nero where we inform tourists and sell some turtle merchandise.  We are living in tents on a campsite 2 minutes from the beach, so there are also cooking and cleaning shifts to make sure that the camp stays clean and everyone is happy!

As with the Katelios Group, there are people of different nationalities and educational backgrounds; many people are volunteering without any interest in studying conservation or marine life. The number of volunteers fluctuates between around 25 and 35 with some people coming to volunteer for as little as a week and some staying for the whole season, from May until September.

A protected nest

Data collection is more organized here at ARCHELON. We dig every possible and every tagged nest until we find the top layer of eggs and take depth measurements and triangulation distances from the nearest marker. Then we carefully cover the nest back up and cover it with a grid, stake in bamboo sticks to keep it in place and put up a nest sign with information and a nest number. The reason why we stake out the nest and protect it with a grid is to prevent predation, which is the main threat to hatchlings. Foxes, dogs, sea gulls and sometimes humans will dig up nests in an effort to get to the eggs. From now on in the season we expect to find more nests uncovered from hatching or predation that were missed earlier on. Tagging the turtles is also a little bit different. ARCHELON uses three tags: a plastic tag on the hind right flipper, a metal tag on the front left flipper and a PIT tag (a little microchip that can be scanned) which is injected into the turtle’s right shoulder.

I had my first morning survey on Saturday July 3^rd and it was very eventful! I learned all the new data collection procedures that ARCHELON uses and I even got to relocate a nest on my first day. It was really exciting to handle the eggs and transfer them higher up the beach. Once the eggs have been in the nest overnight they are very similar to ping pong balls in both size and texture. They even make little indentations that refuse to pop out if you press in a little too much!

The top layer of eggs

Since my first day I have had quite a few night and morning surveys and seen about 10 turtles. Unfortunately there is no reef in the area due to dynamite and drag fishing so you don’t see any turtles while snorkeling. I have done a total of four nest relocations, which were all very successful and on one of my morning surveys we even set the record for the most nests on one sector in a day: we had a total of 18 nests! One nest has started hatching, 7hatchling tracks were observed on the 13^th of July and 4 more tracks were observed on the 15^th. We also had a “nest found by hatching” on the 16th that wasn’t marked out that must somehow have been missed when the turtle laid. We expect a mass emergence of hatchlings before we excavate the nest. Nest excavations happen 9 days after the first hatch or a maximum of 70 days after the lay date if no hatchlings are observed from the nest. The first excavation will definitely be exciting!

Hatchling tracks!!

Kyparissia Bay, my current location, is probably the second largest nesting site for Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in Greece. At the moment we have 635 nests on the beaches that we monitor, which is a record compared to last year (439) and the year before (484) at this time. We are hoping to break the Kyparissia record of 770 nests by the end of the season and even set a new record of over 800 nests. We shall see!

Apart from turtle activities, we have become a pretty close-knit group and play volleyball almost every night, swim on the beach together, play many rounds of cards and occasionally take trips into Kyparissia and go on hikes in the area. I am definitely having a wonderful time and learning a lot. Time is flying by; I can’t believe I have already been here for two weeks! Now that hatching season has started and nesting season is coming to an end (we usually get the last nest around the beginning of August) I will be experiencing turtles in a different light. The anticipation of seeing my first hatchlings (and not just the tracks) almost makes me want to get up bright and early every morning!

It was 1:20am on Tuesday, June 29. Jon, Ueli, Vanessa and I had just reconvened in the middle of the beach and I was telling Ueli and Vanessa that Jon and I had found two false crawls (without seeing the turtles) on our end of the beach. As I was talking, I was looking down at the water’s edge, scanning the coastline and marveling at the bright moon when I came across a rock-like dark shadow. I thought to myself, “That’s a rock I’ve never noticed before; I’m pretty sure there aren’t any rocks right there in front of the sun beds…” So I kept my eye on it until five seconds later it began to move and exit the water very slowly. I looked at Jon who was next to me and he had seen it too. We looked excitedly at Ueli, “It’s a turtle!”

We watched her come up out of the water—her exit time was 1:26am. She laboriously made her way a few meters up the beach and then stopped. We weren’t sure what she was up to at that point so we just waited. Then she started to make her way back down to the beach. We all looked at each other. “Shall we catch her?” “Yes, we still have to measure her and get her tag number!” The four of us sprinted across the sand, making a beeline for the turtles receding form. When we got there, Ueli and Jon tried to hold her still while I looked for a tag on her flippers and Vanessa got out the data sheets. There was no tag. Jon and Ueli hadn’t tagged a turtle yet, so we left it up to them to decide who would do the honors.

The whole while we were talking, the turtle was flailing about and struggling to get back to the water. We were on wet sand, very close to the water and she was pretty strong so we decided that we had to flip her over to tag her properly. It took the strength of three people  (Ueli, Jon and me) to flip her over as she lashed out with her flippers. Jon got some sand whipped into his eyes, I got some in my mouth and we all got sand flung all over our clothes. I got the tag ready and passed it to Jon. Ueli and I crouched down to hold the turtle’s back left flipper steady. The turtle had pretty much calmed down at that point and she wasn’t struggling. So I did not in the least anticipate the smack on the bum that I got from her front flipper as I turned my back to her head! She was strong enough to make me loose my balance and fall over into the shallows, almost knocking Ueli over too.

Finally, upright and wary of any other flipper lashings, we managed to tag her. We then had to flip her upright again to get her shell measurements. Vanessa was recording the data all the while the rest of us were struggling with the turtle. Ueli and Jon managed to keep the turtle still enough for me to get her measurements, although it was no easy task! Every now and then she would open her mouth and stretch out as if to bit Jon, who was the closest to her head. She was a pretty big turtle, with a curved shell length of 81cm and width of 77cm. We were surprised she wasn’t tagged given her shell size. She didn’t have any barnacles on her shell, but she did have a cut along her neck with a few parasites, which was a little worrying. Unfortunately though, we couldn’t help with that.

Eventually we got down all the information we needed and we released her. She got to the water as fast as she could, heading straight for deep water. We looked at the time and it was only 1:35am. The rest of the night was uneventful, but I was content. What a way to end the first chapter of my trip! I have had the chance to see turtles, touch them, watch them nest, wrestle with them, snorkel with them. I feel as though I have experienced them in all the conditions and moods possible and have grasped an understanding of their lives in the water and their brief time on land.

Tonight I am giving a presentation about the Caretta caretta sea turtle to tourists in our Environmental Center and I have one last super shift to Koroni before I leave on Thursday. Even though it feels strange to be moving on and starting fresh with Archelon, I feel very satisfied with the work I have done here and the events I have had the chance to experience. It has truly been eye opening an

I woke up on Wednesday morning at 5:38am to a nudge and the words “Liz, there’s a nest on Potamakia.” Still groggy, I remembered that I was on morning shift. And there was a nest. I threw on some clothes, grabbed a quick bite to eat and opened the door to step outside. When I stepped out on the threshold, there was a crack of thunder and two seconds later it started pouring with rain. Since we work rain or shine, I stepped back inside to get my raincoat and I was ready to go.

We had to move quickly and get to the beach before the rain and tide erased all the tracks and softened the lines of the body bit. It was my first time taking measurements for a nest, although I have found a few false crawls that needed to be measured in the time I’ve been here.

Manuel and I got to the site first as the rain stopped and we surveyed the tracks and took some pictures. We noticed a sort of scuffle pit

in the down tracks and remembered that Bree and Joel on night patrol had mentioned having to wrestle with the turtle and flip her over because they came across her just as she finished laying her eggs. The scuffle pit was quite large, with some tracks going in circles. Joel and caught the turtle by her shoulders and Bree had looked for the tag and upon finding none, they flipped her over to tag her properly. Once they flipped her, they recounted that the turtle had very effectively used one of her front flippers to flick sand in their eyes and attempt to right herself but when that failed she stayed still. Once the tagging was over, Bree and Joel flipped the turtle back over and as Joel held onto her and dug his heels into the sand, Bree took her shell measurements and tried to get an accurate quick sketch of the 22 barnacles covering her shell. After about a half-hour struggle, they let her make her way back to the sea.

While still contemplating the night patrol story, Manuel and I decided to take all the most important measurements before Yvette got to the site in case the rain started up again. The nest was located between markers 151 and 152. We had to set up a middle marker 7.5 meters from the left-hand marker (151) in order to perform a triangulation method by which the nest can be relocated during hatching season when the nests are excavated.

After setting up the middle marker, numbered 151M, we began to take our measurements.  Bree and Joel had left a little stick in the body pit to mark the spot where the egg chamber was. We used the GPS to record the location at the egg chamber and then we measured the distance to each of the three markers from the stick. Just after we finished with those measurements, Yvette showed up with her 7-yearold son, Joe. Together we measured the distance between the up and down tracks at the point closest to the water, measured the distance from the egg chamber to the back of the beach, to the high-tide line and finally to the water’s edge. The last step in the process was to bury a ring of bamboo sticks around the egg chamber about 10cm deep to facilitate the people in finding the nest when the time comes to excavate.

We searched around the area for bamboo sticks and set them up around the egg chamber, as they should be placed. Once they were all in place, we drew little red arrows pointing in towards the egg chamber so that they did not look like random pieces of bamboo. Then we set about digging the holes to bury the marked bamboo. Finally, with all the measurements complete, we erased all the tracks and filled in the body pit.

The whole process took about an hour, and we were lucky enough that the rain held off, apart from a slight drizzle about halfway through. As we returned to the houses, we stopped at three nests that are located very close to a hotel and its sun beds. Just the day before, Jean and I on the afternoon shift had placed cages on these nests to prevent people from setting up the umbrellas on top of them or driving over them.  In order to place the cages in the right spot, we had to use the triangulation method with the measurements that had been recorded for each nest. Under normal circumstances this would have been a simple task, but it took us much longer than it should because of a strong wind.

The measuring tape kept whipping around and would arc instead of making straight lines, which added quite a large margin of error to our calculations. However, we did come across the marked bamboo ring on two of the nests, which told us we were in fact in the right place.

It’s hard to believe that I will be leaving this place and all the people I have met in less than one week. Next Thursday, July 1^st, I will be making my way to Kyparissia where I will be working with the Archelon organization and the turtles that nest in that area. The change will most certainly be interesting!

I came back from Koroni last Thursday with burns on two fingers where I had come into contact with a jellyfish and the fingers had swollen to the size (and color) of carrots. The look on everyone’s face when I walked up seemed to say “Liz, you’ve touched one thing too many…” I may be one of the most inquisitive and curious members of our group and I like to get up close and touch things when I know they are harmless. I had decided to snorkel between Koroni and Lefkas that morning instead of kayaking and it was a beautiful morning swim. The water was crystalline clear and very calm. I saw two small rays, a starfish, lots of very interesting fish and of course the jellyfish that stung me. I didn’t intentionally poke the jellyfish, though; I know to keep away from those!

Having a swollen hand hasn’t limited my work or shifts. Upon our arrival to Lefkas beach on Thursday we found a false crawl. In addition, just last night (Sunday) we had one new nest and two false crawls on our end of Mounda beach. We missed the turtles that made the false crawls but we saw the last one nest. I got to tag the turtle, which was pretty little. She was very quiet and seemed unperturbed by the tagging, she didn’t even yank her flipper back as hard as the others did. Matt, from the UK, who I was working with had a pair of night vision goggles so when we watched the turtle from a distance it was very cool to see her through the goggles.

With all the turtle activity recently the numbers have gone up to 13 nests and 13 false crawls on Mounda beach. Koroni/Lekfas has three nests and one false crawl and Avythos and Megasamos have 16 possible nests and a few more false crawls. Turtle activity has picked up quite a bit. We have had to tag six turtles so far, and we have seen more untagged females while snorkeling so we expect to do more tagging during the season. We have old as well as new turtles nesting—one turtle’s tag goes as far back as 1998, although Manuel, the program director, thinks that she was tagged previous to that– the project started roughly 20 years ago but some of the early data was not recorded properly  and has been lost.

It has been very exciting getting news from the people on night shifts and also the people on morning shifts about the nests and the tracks. We always have stories to share and experiences to compare. So far, the most exciting turtle watch has been by Aaron from Texas and Vanessa from Ireland, who came across the turtle as she was making her way up the beach from the water.

They watched her as she dug and abandoned two body pits and begin her trip back to the water without nesting. At that point, knowing that they still needed to record all her data, Aaron rushed up and grabbed the turtle by the shoulders. This was Vanessa’s first night shift (we had a turnover of volunteers; 3 people left and 4 new people arrived), so Aaron was telling her everything she needed to do as she washed all four flippers looking for a tag—but found none. Tagging is difficult while the turtle is in her trance laying the eggs but Vanessa managed to tag her on the first try while Aaron was wrestling with the turtle as she hissed and thrashed and dug her flippers in the sand. Vanessa managed to get all the shell measurements and a drawing of the shell pattern while Aaron struggled with the turtle. It was surely a different experience from the calm data collection when a turtle is laying her eggs!

Even though Aaron and Vanessa had a difficult time, they certainly had a good story to tell at the end of it, and that experience is not one to be forgotten quickly! My nesting experiences have been a lot more relaxed and exciting in their own way, although wrestling with a turtle does seem like a vigorous and exhilarating event that would be fun to try once.

This morning we had to relocate our first nest because it was located to close to the high tide line and there was danger of the nest being flooded. Although I wasn’t there in person, people got to pick up and carry the eggs to a new location higher on the beach where they could be better incubated. I definitely wish I had been there to feel and see the eggs up close and in better light. They look, and people have affirmed that they are, rather squishy and rubbery but also very smooth and slippery so you have to be really careful in the relocation process not to drop them. The morning shift had to move the eggs pretty quickly though since the heat was already picking up and they didn’t want to expose the eggs to long. Measurements were taken both for the old nest and the new nest they created and now all we can do is wait and hope that the relocation was successful!

I saw my first turtles nesting last night/this morning! We patrol Mounda beach at night in two groups and each group has two people. One group patrols half of the beach (Kaminia) and the other group patrols the other half of the beach (Potamakia). I was patrolling Kaminia with Ueli from Switzerland.

The first nest was on Potamakia. The group found the turtle at 11:40pm on Tuesday night and texted us to let us know they had found a nest. When we got there she had just begun laying her eggs. She was untagged, so we got to experience the tagging process.

Although the female enters a trance as she lays her eggs, when we clamped down with the tag gun she instinctively tried to pull in her flipper and it took a lot of strength to hold her flipper in place and finish the job properly. The turtle was beautiful, very young with a small shell and no barnacles or other distinctive markings except for a small spot on her shell, which was a lighter shade than the rest of her. Ueli and I had to leave early to patrol the rest of our beach but the other group watched the whole nesting process.

We found a nest a little later on Kaminia. It was very dark since the moon had set around 11pm.

I was leading looking for tracks when I saw a very obvious trail leading up the beach and a dark spot, which we assumed to be the turtle. We crawled up slowly and quietly until we were within close reach of the turtle and could determine the stage of nesting. It was 1:14am on Wednesday morning. The female was digging her egg chamber at this point and so when we

got up close she kept throwing sand at us as she scooped it out of the nest. A little while later she began laying her eggs, and we took all our measurements. Our turtle was tagged and was a slightly larger female than the turtle from Potamakia. Her tag number suggested that she had only been tagged last year and her shell size was only slightly larger so she must have only been a little older than the other turtle. When we were done with the first portion of data collection we settled down to watch the rest of the nesting process and record the times of each stage. We watched her lay all her eggs,

sometimes two at a time. The eggs are about the size of ping-pong balls, white and rubbery. They have a soft, rubbery exterior to prevent any damage to the embryos as the eggs are dropped into the egg chamber, dug about 20-50cm deep. After laying the eggs the turtle took a small break (she was breathing very hard throughout the whole nesting process) and then proceeded to fill the egg chamber, camouflage the nest and make her way back to the sea. She entered the sea at 2:02am.

Most turtles take between 1-2 hours to nest, and our female was on the lower end of that scale. Given the time she spent covering the nest and camouflaging it, we judged that she must have come out of the water around 1am, so the total nesting time would have been around 1 hour. The turtle on the Potamakia side took quite a bit longer. Watching the two females nest was an incredible and very exciting experience. From the time we noticed her tracks on the beach to the moment she entered the water and started swimming away I felt like I was holding my breath with excitement and awe. Sea turtles are very obviously meant for the water but their anatomy allows them to nest on the beach. While the female is nesting, you can sea trails of water from her eyes like tears, as if she is crying, but this is just one of the ways that turtles excrete excess salt from their system. The whole process was so

breathtaking a beautiful.

Our groups went to bed at 6am and the morning team took over the record the day’s data for the nest and its position etc. I really hope that we get more nests tonight so that I can experience the morning data collection too. The whole process is so fascinating! Turtles come to shore to lay nests during the nesting season approximately every 12-21 days after they mate in late April through May and early June. Since our first two nests were on June 5^th we are expecting those turtles to come up and nest again within the next week or so and we are hoping for more females to come up and nest also. All in all, last night was a fantastic shift!