The hatchery at parque hawaii, named by a guy who thought it looked like Hawaii
Excavating some old nests...in some nests we saved some live turtles that couldnt make it to the surface
One of the hatcheries with hundreds of nests.
Riding to monterrico on the top of the bus on our way for a feed
This is releasing a baby turtle. It has to get out through this massive surf.
Hatchery succes over the last few years
One of the hatcheries with palms to keep the temperature cooler and ensure equal numbers of males and femnales hatched because they are reptiles
Some more baby olive ridley turtles we released
The turtles normally hatch together like this, its really funny as they usually fall asleep half way up like these ones
Releasing a big whole lot of baby turtles at the 6am check
We released 100 turtles here
Feeding the iguanas
The freshwater turtles were always keen for a feed of cabbage
30 September 2009
We are now volunteering at Parque Hawaii, a wicked turtle hatchery between Hawaii and Monterrico on the pacific coast. The weather is hot and sunny all day and there is a great group of like minded people that we are working with from all over the world. I have never seen so many mosquitos so we are loving our 80% deet insect repellant.
Karen and I thought we would be lucky to see some baby turtles while we were here but because it is one of the most productive hatcheries on the coast we have been able to release at least 30 turtles the last couple of nights.
At night we walk the beach trying the find adult females laying eggs. Its a big business here with huge numbers of locals patrolling the beaches on foot and by 4 wheel driver motor bikes who usually beat us to the eggs. The majority of poachers sell the eggs to us where we bury them in a protected hatchery, those that dont sell them to restaurants.
During the day we feed the fresh water turtles and caimans, do temperture checks on the buried eggs, excavate nests to see the percentages of hatched eggs and release hatched turtles.
3 comments:
I thought there were only thirty days in September. Unless it's a double leap year, which it is not.
yeah bro, they got an extra day here
Mark, great work and wonderful photos! I'm with a small environmental non-profit in Micronesia, and we're gearing up to release a book about reptiles in our region. Olive ridleys are rare visitors in waters here and we'll have a small entry about them as well. Any chance you could give permission to use a photo of the baby turtle?
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