Turtle Release

Saturday, August 4^th

Today, Miriam and Colum came down from the city to have a staff meeting. The meeting took up most of the day. We talked about solutions to problems in the parque, ways to get involved with the community more, fundraising ideas for the hatchery, and other administrative stuff. I’m really happy that everyone is on board for the hatchery and ready to start work now. It was a productive talk. We already have a donor who is willing to give us the cement blocks for the hatchery, which is great! I think we covered a lot.

At 5:00, we tagged the turtle and released it. It was swimming around fine and the vets weren’t 100% sure they would make it down from the City in time. The “turtle vets” in Guatemala are dog and cat vets that take time off to work with turtles. They don’t get paid and they aren’t actually trained to work with turtles. They have just gained experience over the years. 

Scott Handy came all the way from La Barrona just to tag this turtle. They are rare here, so he was excited to tag a Hawksbill instead of another Olive Ridley. It will be interesting to see where else this turtle will go! Tagging is relatively easy and they are put on the second scale of both front flippers. It would be really cool if Hawaii could start its own tagging program. The tags are simple and metal and not very expensive. 

Scott tagging the right flipper

 

 Left flipper tagged!

For the release, a bunch of people from the town came to watch and we were able to get some donations. It was a really cool experience! I loved watching it make its way back into the ocean where it belongs. It kind of made up for last night! 

 Mariachi ready to let the turtle go

 

 Making its way to the water!

 If you compare Hawksbill tracks to Olive Ridley tracks, you will notice a difference. Olive Ridleys have asymmetrical tracks, while Hawksbills have symmetrical tracks. This is a picture of the Hawksbill's tracks.