First Tourist Release

Saturday, September 1^st

On crawl count this morning, there weren’t that many nests, so Megan and I filled up a bunch of huge holes. Parlameros put the turtles in these huge holes so that they can’t get out. They get so stressed that they end up laying. The other group got 15 eggs from a parlamero in the morning. They didn’t even ask for the three extra eggs, the parlamero just gave the eggs to them! I’m hoping the reason is because of the signs that we put up. Mariachi told me that one of the parlameros (a teenager) listed on our sign was super excited to have his name all over town. He bragged to all of his friends about it apparently. It is encouraging that at least some people are taking notice of the signs.

In the morning, some volunteers and I filled bags with dirt and planted mangrove seeds that we had collected from the fishing trip in the mangroves. They are part of the reforestation effort for the mangroves here. The rest of the day I slept. I'm exhausted from all the patrols, crawl counts, and hatchery checks. 

 The seeds in the back are the ones we planted and the ones in the front were planted about a month ago

In the evening, we all had a of couple beers to celebrate the weekend. At around 7:00pm, two lone hatchlings popped up out of a nest. Two tourist families came to watch. One family was super cute and you could see how awestruck the young boy was by the hatchlings. The other family refused to listen to us and used flash on their cameras. The flash really disorients the hatchlings because they are attracted to light. That is how they are able to get to the ocean...they see the moon's reflection off of the waves. I was so annoyed with the family! It was my first tourist release though and in the grand scheme of things it went well.