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!
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 :)
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!
