Good-byes and Hellos!

My final weeks have almost come to an end here in Turkey, and they have been just as eventful as always! 
With an amazing trip to Istanbul to experience some traditional culture including balik ekmek (fish bread), beer on the steps outside Galata tower to drinking endless cups of tea in endless little cafes! As well as seeing all the beautiful mosques and walking about 50 miles in 5 days, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and would recommend this city to everyone!

Saying goodbye to my friends in Istanbul I returned back to Dalyan with its small buildings and quiet roads and settled back into the calm of this quiet river town. Seeing my old friends at the centre and saying hello to our new turtle Buggy (who has a very poorly flipper from having fishing line wrapped around it) was a pleasure, and I have also had a chance to spend some time in Dalyan with my family and some very old friends, enjoying our own private boat for the day, jumping off boats and watching shoals of fish in the water. 

I have also been lucky enough to go on another blood sample boat trip again, and I can safely say that the day was one of mixed bags! Firstly, Turkish time was upon us, and we left late, okay, that is not so bad, but then when settling down to wait for the team to do some of their open water dives our little boat decided to stop working, and the wind starting taking us away from the divers! Nothing that a little fishing boat and a rope between the boats can't solve. Thank-fully our trusty captain got his hands dirty and managed to fix the engine so back on our way we were ready to get some blooood! Successfully we managed to get 2 turtles, unsuccessfully I decided to have a go with the bait and crab line.... now, let me explain how this works, you throw the crab in (that is tied to the line) then in the other hand you hold the fishing line holder and let the line go as far as you can throw, then reel it back in slowly to attract the turtles attention. My turn. Rather than do this even a little bit well, I decide to throw everything just straight into the water, line, crab holder and all, and after giving a little yelp seeing an Italian jumping into the water 5 seconds later to rescue it!! Luckily everyone saw the funny side of this, but needless to say, I left it to the professionals after that!

Our third turtle was rather more annoying, after seeing the satellite tag on the back of a turtle, we thought it was Dalyan, a turtle released the previous year and aptly named Dalyan due to her love of the delta, but seeming as we didn't have her blood we wanted her! After a few crabs and a bit of skills the turtle was successfully put in the boat. It wasn't Dalyan. This turtle was in fact Coban, one of the turtles we released 2 weeks ago, and not in the place he should be! So we decided, Mr naughty would come back to the centre until the release next month when all our angry turtles will be released right out at sea. Lets hope this time around he stays away!

So now I find myself with just a few days left in Turkey and my future ahead of me. Looking back at my time, I learnt a lot about myself and turtle biology, I met some amazing people and I will be going back to University even more ready to learn and with a greater appreciation for my course and what my future holds!

To everyone I met, I wish you all the best, and to anyone thinking of doing volunteering anywhere in the world, just do it! You only have one life, and you must live it to the full!
Ciao for now, until my next big adventure!

Stormy Weather

While hurricane Isaac is blowing through America it would seem that we are having our own weather troubles here. Although there is still not a cloud in sight there has been extremely high wind levels causing several peoples tents to blow away and making beach patrol last night impossible to spot any hatchling tracks! This morning I felt like I was crossing a desert with the sand whipping against my legs like razor blades!

But what I really wanted to post, which I forgot yesterday was the link to take a look at where our released turtles are going:  

What a beauty! Just an example of some of our locals!

Dekamer sea turtle tracking

 The hope with all our turtles is that they go out to sea and stay away from areas where turtle feeding occurs, as is the case in Dalyan River. Fingers crossed that none of them are put back in the centre because of injuries caused by us!

"Kookookachoo they find their way back to the big old blue"

After spending the day yesterday giving information to tourists and constantly saying 'wait until I show you our beautiful, graceful, female Aysegul' and then never finding which tank she was in, it suddenly hit me... she isn't here anymore! Just two days ago we released 4 of our sea turtles on Iztuzu beach (Aysegul, Hakan, Ossman, and Coban).
The day was a hectic blur, with the adrenaline pumping through my body hard and fast almost all day, and the centre was a flurry of people and activity. All four of our sea turtles were chosen to have satellite tags attached to them. This involved a lot of preparation and hard work. First of all we sanded the shell down to remove the top layer of dead shell to ensure maximum attachment of the tag and reduce the chances of it coming off any time soon due to the natural processs of the turtles shedding their shell for growth.
Once the shell is smooth and cleaned with acetone the sattelite housing is glued onto the carapace with a cemetey, gluey substance, it is then left to dry for an hour or so and then they are ready! Unfortunately, it seemed that Ossman did not like his new tag and turned his whole body over in the water 5 times! Not a good sign of things to come.
At this point in the day I almost had the shakes from nerves and adrenaline due to the fact that I would be in the water with these turtles trying to catch a glimpse of them swimming away to freedom! I would like to point out that I was not scared of these turtles, and was very excited to be given such a great opportunity.
By the afternoon several important people and journalists had arrived to film and record the day, this did unfortunately cause a lot more hassle than necessary on the beach when releasing the turtles. There was around 100 people there for the big event as well as all the journalists flashing away with their cameras completely surrounding the turtles and barely giving them space to breathe let alone get to the sea. This made it considerably difficult to try and follow any turtles out into the open sea when all I could see around me was legs and people shouting 'he went that way' 'no wait, there's one!' Nightmare! Unfortunately due to extremely poor visibility in the sea, rough water and the light slowly going we were lucky if we saw a turtle for just one second. After swimming out for 5 or 10 minutes and unsuccessfully finding any of the turtles we headed back to the beach. On the upside, none of them wanted to hang around and they were all eager to get away.

Perhaps next time a release would be much better done in the early hours of the morning when the sea is clear and calm and the early sun allows for better light levels, and when there is less people around to stress out the turtles. Because at the end of the day, as a volunteer I am not here for publicity or for 20 journalists, I am here (as well as all the other volunteers) to rehabilitate and protect the turtles and to make the process as stress free for them as possible. 

Whether I would call the day a success or not depends on how I look at it. In one sense it was a great success because all the turtles went straight out to sea and didn't seem to have any problems, on the other hand, too many people and too many cameras caused problems for the dive team when it came to making sure the turtles were all okay.

So, from 11 turtles down to 7, I find myself missing Aysegul rather a lot, but hope that she lives even longer with her beautiful shell still free from boat injuries and human destruction.

Next stop: Istanbul for a bit of culture and history!

Shooting Stars & Hands in Toilets

In my past posts I have been very involved in the green and loggerhead turtles that we study and care for here at the centre, but there is another turtle species that we also work with but there are far fewer nests and we rarely see them. These guys are the freshwater nile turtles (Trionyx sp.) and unlike the sea turtles here the Trionyx turtles permanently live in Dalyan river which is their natural habitat, their features differ greatly and to the eye it is easy to tell them apart. Firstly, the Trionyx turtles have long necks with pointed noses and secondly, rather than flippers like the sea turtles they have almost paw-like flippers/legs/paws with little claws at the end.
With only 8 nests of theirs on the beach the likelihood of finding any hatchlings has been slim, but it seems we were lucky and managed to find 3 hatchlings to study and observe before releasing 1 day later.

I must admit when I first saw pictures of the trionyx adults I thought they didn't even come close to being as beautiful as the sea turtles, but as soon as I saw the hatchlings swimming about I fell instantly in love with these little critters alternating their arms and legs (for they are not flippers nor are they paws) and swimming along merrily. They have a funny way about them that I can't help but admire, and although their claws will be sharp when they are older, when holding them they almost tickled your hands!

When working within an area of conservation or rehabilitation, any animal in need is tended too regardless of the circumstances and the type of animal. So when arriving at the end of the beach after night patrol to find a gecko swimming around the toilet bowl desperately trying to get out but failing miserably, you can't help but sigh as you willingly put your hand into the slightly warm toilet water and save the poor thing as it scurries away then washing your hands for a good 5 minutes with a content heart that you saved a life. This is the life of a conservationist.

In other news, cleaning the tanks last night in absolute record time allowed Merve & I to do a little bit of star gazing for the meteor shower that I knew was starting. After settling down in chairs and pillows with lights out, no clouds and very little light pollution we saw our first few shooting stars, each one was more brilliant than the last with a few particularly bright ones making me smile from ear to ear. 34 wishes in total, and one came true that night: After around 15 stars/meteors falling to Earth like Angels falling from heaven we both decided we wanted to wish for a shooting star right in front of us, a big glittery one, with a glowing trail, so presently the next shooting star came along and we made our wish. No more than 5 minutes later and our wish had been granted, and our faces beamed. Through the girlish laughter that had appeared from pure bliss and relaxation we watched more stars & meteors crash through the atmosphere and burn up to nothing in front of our eyes before I sent Merve to bed as she had drifted to sleep with the mosquitos eyeing her up for a late dinner. I went to bed half an hour later after contemplating life and hearing the Olympic closing ceremony distantly being watched by someone in the centre and was quite happy and content with how things were in the world, if only for 30 minutes.

Busy Busy Busy!

Things at the centre have been very busy the past few weeks. With hatchlings every night now we have saved 80 babies from the claws of the hungry crabs and greedy birds! We have had a lot of media visits too taking interviews and photos for short films and newspaper articles. Sometimes this is a little distracting from the work that we are doing, but if we are raising awareness in Tukey about Sea Turtles and protecting them then I think it's worth the hassle.

Hannah Turkish News Photo 

Newspaper article. 

We also have 3 new turtles, all with the same problem and none of them technically needing our help. 3 male turtles have been brought in from Dalyan River and Cache for aggressive behaviour towards humans, with one of them inflicting some pretty serious wounds to humans. This is not normal behaviour. Turtles are not aggressive creatures usually and it is not common for them to bite people. 
Unfortunately, particularly in Dalyan there is a lot of feeding of the turtles by tourists and local restaurants. This causes the turtles to associate humans with food, so when they see a human swimming in the river and they are hungry, they bite.The simple solution is that this feeding of the turtles needs to stop.

One of our newest turtles trying to escape!

The other side to this story is that the aggression is from male turtles, as it is still the mating season (just about), the hormones being released from the males hypothalamus are in overload and these boys are feeling angry, emotional and to put it bluntly they are horny. This doesn't happen to the females so they haven't got any interest in biting people quite so much. 

After having so many naughty turtles come to us, the local officials have finally decided that it is time to do something about the feeding, and it gives me great pleasure to announce that the plan is to fine any fishing boats or tourist boats found to be feeding the turtles with any food including crabs. This is definitely a step in the right direction from stopping the turtles biting people and also from keeping them out of the fresh-water river which is really really bad for them.

Treating the turtles
 

I haven't mentioned this much before but it is a vital part of our work here at the centre, and without it, many turtles would only get worse. Our main patient at the moment is Anil the male loggerhead who has been with us for almost a month now with wounds from shark, boat and other turtles. When he first came here there were various infections and bacteria in the wounds. So, we have been taking him out of his tank almost every day to clean and check his wounds and now he is doing much better and his wounds are healing really well.

Anil's flipper and shell wound healing nicely.

The rehab we provide speeds up the healing process and allows the new shell to be free from infection.
Sometimes however our turtles are too sick and we need to give them a lot more care, including antibiotic injections and tube feeding.


For the time being, nesting females has slowed considerably and it seems that we are only getting a coulple more nests a week now. This is normal, and by mid August the nesting season will be over. 




Total nests: 288
Total saved hatchlings: 80


Next time: Sea Turtle Diving Data & Freshwater Trionyx Nile Turtles.

MORE BABIES!

It seems that it is baby boom time here in Turkey, after our first turtles at Sarigerme hatched, we have now had two nights of hatchlings here in Dalyan! 
The excitement of seeing the first tracks going in utterly the wrong way and for what seemed miles was a welcomed adrenalin rush after only 2 hours sleep and I eagerly followed the tracks to look for our very first (and very lost) Dalyan hatchling. Sure enough in the distance I spotted some movement among the sun beds. Like any female when they see babies my voice went squeeky and high and my hormones brought me close to tears at seeing such a small, defenceless baby. Everyones smiles were from ear to ear as the cameras were whipped out to take pictures.

The baby turtles that we find are the hatchlings that don't make it out of the nest during the night or have gone the wrong way and if left would die of dehydration, predation or just pure exhaustion. 

The turtles are carried back in a bucket to the centre where we keep them for the day in some water to get their energy back, and then they are released in the evening out to sea to begin their lives. Out of all the hatchlings we will have here only around 0.3% will survive to adulthood which works out at about 45 adults sea turtles of the thousands of hatchlings we will have.







The tracks of the baby turtles in the early hours of the morning. Happily, most of the tracks are going the right way and there has been no predators attacking the hatchlings yet.



Total number of nests: 250
Total number of rescued hatchlings: 22! YAY!

Our first hatchlings!!!

It is official! The hatching season is upon us. This morning I was priviledged enough to find the tracks from 2 nests of around 80 hatchlings as well as 15 that we saved from almost certain death from overheating or pure exhaustion!
It turns out however that these hatchlings were not from Dalyan beach, but from Sarigerme near Dalaman. This is one of the other beaches that we patrol but that is not protected and we don't do it everyday. Unfortunately we forgot our cameras but thanks to the trusty fancy phones I managed to get a few photos for you.

I have been informed that Sarigerme nests always hatch before the Dalyan ones due to the hotter stonier sand, but, our first nest in Dalyan is due to hatch any day so fingers crossed for some healthy babies.

Another rather yucky part of the job is checking the nest for any unfertilised or unfinished eggs, this involves looking for any left over eggs and breaking them apart. Some eggs contained lots of parasites and others weren't even fertilised (if they are fertilised the yolk will cling to the egg at a certain growth point) and just a few had signs of embryos in them, but I can safely say I will never get used to the smell of the essentially rotten eggs!!! 


In other news, temperatures are rising here in Turkey, and our air con is our biggest luxury!!
We have had several new tanks arrive ready and waiting for the hatchlings on Dalyan beach and the nesting of the turtles has started to slow down.
Hopefully some hatchlings in Dalyan soon!!




Total nests: 249!
 

Beaches & Boats.

Living day and night on a pristine beach with beautiful views of mountains, seas and the lagoon isn't all that bad for an entire summer, and although sand appears everywhere I could happily live here forever.

With the crickets and ciacadas making their music in the trees swaying in the cool breeze and the warm, pinky orange glow of the sun setting behind the mountains you can't help but feel completely content with life.

Reality hits and someone is calling that dinner is ready, but Turkish food has yet to disappoint me since I first experienced it 15 years ago. We rarely eat meat, but when you have such fresh & mouthwatering fruit and veg to eat I find myself not even missing it! From perfectly sized apricots that are so full of juice that they almost burst in your mouth and watermelons bigger than my head with the taste of summer, refreshing you in the heat of the day.
The tomatoes are red through and through with the mediterranean sunshine making them huge and utterly delicious. Even my 6ft 2in brother who frowns at most vegetables can't resist the taste of these beauties! I could go on and on about the bounty of food that Turkey has to offer, but I will let you discover that when you come visit.

   Other than the food, life is pretty structured, we cook, clean, we take care of turtles and we talk to tourist. But after working hard for weeks we had a rare trip onto Dalya nriver on Captain Ismails boat. Although this trip was deemed "working", our day involved busily and frequently jumping of the boat into the lake and river, swimming, eating, drinking and looking for shells like 5 year olds. I can honestly say I will never tire of swimming in a freshwater lake and coming out of it refreshed and without the taste of salt in my mouth. 1 hour of our day was spent checking for injured turtles, and this isn't too arduous, chugging along the river and peering down into its merky depths for the sign of any turtles coming up to breathe.
   Thankfully no injured turtles found and we headed back to the centre.

In two weeks time the hatchlings should be on their way and we are all looking forward to the moment when we first see some babies emerging! Lots of pictures will be taken!

Total nests: 220!



As I write this I am watching Wimbledon,so strange in a foreign country but... C'MON MURRAY!!!!!

Night time beach patrol.

One of the most exciting things about working here at the turtle centre is the fact that we are on a Loggerhead nesting beach, and currently it is the nesting season. 
Iztuzu beach is protected and tourists are prohibited from going onto the beach at night. But as many of us are budding scientists and we are all here to protect the turtles we are privileged enough to have the entire 5km beach to ourselves after 8pm to study the female turtles and their behaviour.


Every night a group of us will head out at 10pm and walk along the beach until about 3am, we then sleep for a couple of hours and make the journey back along the beach at around half past 5, a tough, but rewarding job.
On the way along the beach we walk with the moon and stars to guide us looking for the tracks of the females heading up the beach. When the tracks are found we check for a nest (many females can be quite fussy and simply turn around and head back to sea without laying a nest), when a nest is found we move about half of the sand from the top of the nest and set up a cage to protect the eggs from predation from foxes and you wouldn't believe it but we also get badgers snacking on our turtle eggs!

If the nest is too close to the sea or between the sunbeds we will move it to a safe place, this can be done within the first 24 hours after the female has nested, but is more risky for the embryo development if left longer. 
The egg count within each nest ranges from 60-100 eggs on average with a few exceptions of 110/120!

The sex of the hatchlings of sea turtles is temperature dependent as they do not have any sex chromosomes, so to see what is going on in the nests under the sand we add temperature recorders that send data directly to our computers. If the egg is above 30 degrees the hatchling will be female, and at 28 degrees the hatchlings will be males. A serious risk for turtles is global climate change and the warming of the sand producing more females, and this could seriously affect the total number of mating pairs in years to come.

If we find a female making her nest or laying her eggs we will wait for her to finish, but we will usually take her measurements while she is laying as the females go into a sort of trance and are focused entirely on laying their eggs. All the females are tagged so we can see how often they are returning to nest and if they are behaving normally. One of our newest scientific projects is to also take genetic samples from the females we find and compare the DNA of the females hatchlings between each nest that she lays to see if she is mating with a different turtle between each nest in the season or if she is in fact storing the sperm and saving it for later. This will be a long term project that will take about 3 years of data to study.

Finally, we check the current nests for any predation and record the number off eggs that may have been eaten during the night. Foxes and badgers often roam the beach at night looking for a tasty snack. We arrive back at the centre just in time for breakfast and then head straight to bed!!

The past two weeks have been very busy here at the centre, with another new turtle, and lots of school groups visiting, sadly our newest turtle Samet was so badly injured that he did not survive, and even more unfortunate the young loggerhead Ferhat took a turn for the worse a few days ago and didn't make it. When you are with these turtles every day you start to learn their characteristics and personalities and they are all very different and beautiful, so it is always a very sad time to see them die, but in such extreme cases as Samet and Ferhat there was very little we could do to save them.
Mr no name however is doing well and has been named Anil. I hope that he will make a full recovery!

Tomorrow we head out on a boat to patrol Dalyan river, as we have had some calls about a rather odd turtle hanging around. More news soon! 




Total number of nests: 185.
Total number of mosquito bites: hardly any! it's a miracle!

Introductions.

I arrived in Turkey at the centre with the sun shining and with my bags weighing me down. After a quick tour I was introduced to the team, a group of diverse people from all over Europe, but the real introductions where soon to follow. Our resident turtles that are at the centre for injuries and illness.
There are seven turtles at the centre at the moment, including Mr no name who arrived today.

Let me introduce to you, the lovely ladies:

Aysegul
Aysegul is our oldest turtle here, she is 70-75 years old, and also our biggest turtle. When she came her she was very underweight and weak, and was only half the weight she should be. (Sea turtles should be between 70-200kg, but Aysegul was only 35kg!)
In the past week she has started eating fish, and today she was weighed at 43kg, she also caught her first crab which is a very good sign that she can still hunt for her food when she is released.

Simge
The biter! She will always come up to your fingers to try and bite them off!

This is Simge's second time here at the centre, the first time she was here she had a fishing line around her flipper and had to have it removed, so now she only has 3. Now she is back again for a fungal infection on her skin from pollution and bacteria in the sea infecting some cuts on her head and flippers.
It is a slow process to clean up, but eventually she will be released...again.


Fethiye 
Fethiye is our little green turtle, from Fethiye harbour. She is our resident vegetarian and every day one of the team goes out to sea and dives down to get her some fresh seagrass to eat. She is 15 years old and has a bubble stuck under her shell which stops her from diving and swimming well. Unfortunately to fix this she needs to have a big operation which needs professional care, so we are waiting to see what happens with her. But for now, she is ours to care for and love lots!


And now for the boys:


Ferhat 

Ferhat has only been with us a short time, but he is our sickest turtle. He has an infection in the lungs, almost a sort of pneumonia for turtles. He is very weak and every day he is given antibiotics and calcium. He also has a damaged jaw, and must be fed through a tube.
Due to his lack of strength Ferhat is kept in shallow water that allows him to breathe without swimming and is covered with a damp towel to keep him cool. Only time will tell if this turtle survives.


Hakan 
 Hakan is our biggest male, he is 40 years old and came to the centre with a hook and fishing line through his tongue. This hook has caused the tongue to split and now he has a  tongue like a snake. Hakan is fully healed now and ready to be released, before he is released he will have a GPS satelitte tracker added to him to see what behaviour he shows when he is back in the wild.

Nuri 

Nuri is another of our turtles with 3 flippers, and it is also his second time here. This time for a propellor injury on his shell. Sea turtles can still swim and dive no problem without one of their flippers, but when you observe them, they have a phantom flipper and still move as though it was there. 

Nuri is fully healed now and will join Hakan to be released with the GPS tracker.


 Mr No Name (for now) 

Finally, our newest addition is a male turtle around 35 years old that came in today with some big injuries from a propellor hitting his shell and back flippers. He is very active at the moment, but is not using his back flippers atall, suggesting that they are hurting him. He will remain at the centre for at least 4-6 months.






As for the rest of life here on Iztuzu beach, the weather is HOT and SUNNY, the sea is lush and the food is fresh and tasty.

Total number of loggerhead nests : 83
Total number of Nile Turtle nests:     7
Total number of mosquito bites:      11 and counting!

Next time: What it's like on beach patrol and nesting.

Turtles and tonsilitis


Tomorrow, with my trusty rucksack packed and my body pumped with drugs to ward of the perfectly timed inflamed tonsils, I head off to Turkey to care for injured loggerhead sea turtles and protect their nests on the beach.
For 3 months I will be posting news on the injured turtles and the research we will be doing there, as well as any other interesting discoveries that may be found.

Tally hoe England and your clouds! Hello Turkey and the sun!

Next update: Next friday :)