Sunday, September 23, 2012

Busy Turtle Day and Night


Sunday, September 9th

On crawl counts this morning, I barely missed another turtle! However, I wasn’t that bummed when I saw that she only laid about a dozen misshapen eggs. I had a little chuckle to myself when I saw how upset the parlameros were. I waited for awhile for the turtle to lay, so it was actually bright enough that I just started counting tracks from that spot. At the end of the 4km, I got a ride back from a guy on a moto. I love it when I don’t have to walk in the heat!

When I got back, Riikka was busy burying tons of eggs…she hadn’t even started her crawl count yet! Apparently, she found a turtle and then bought a couple nests. I helped her fill out all of the data in the books and then she set out finally. When she came back, she notified me of a dead turtle. I went with Judit to measure it, take pictures, and take a skin sample. It was pretty decomposed and smelly. For the rest of the day, I slept as I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep last night. I’m doing pretty well considering I was pretty sick a couple days ago. 

Measuring the shell of the dead turtle

 

For patrols, it was a busy night! Riikka and I barely made it 1km and we had already bought 3 different nests. It felt like we had walked back and forth to the parque so many times. Just in 1km on the Monterrico side, 8 turtles had come up in a span of about 2 hours. After we ran out of money to buy nests, we called it quits for the night because we had crawl counts early in the morning. I know it is going to be a crazy morning for crawl counts.

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