Sick Turtle

Wednesday, August 22th

I woke up to a text at 6:00am from one of the volunteers stating that she had found a sick stranded turtle while on crawl counts. I immediately got up and started filling the holding tank with water. The turtle was extremely skinny and very weak. It barely struggled when you lifted it up. Mariachi and Willi insisted on administering Suero right away even though it is better to wait. You want to let the turtle get settled and see what is really wrong. After looking over it some, we could see that it was coughing up blood, which is never good. 

Later, Alice came over to the parque and we measured and weighed the turtle. Afterwards, we went back to her house to for a Spanish lesson. On the way there I got a call from a volunteer saying that the turtle had stopped breathing. We headed back to the parque and saw that the turtle was dead. We conducted a necropsy to find out what was wrong. Upon opening the turtle up, we were able to conclude that it was an immature male, one of its lungs was full of blood, and its intestines were filled with green diarrhea. Alice had seen the green diarrhea before and it is basically a death sentence for the turtle. The lung filled with blood wasn’t good either. Alice contacted the turtle vets in the City to see what could have caused that. It's sad because when we got this turtle, it was basically on its death bed. There was nothing we could have really done to save it unfortunately. 

 

 The poor turtle

 

 An abnormal turtle lung

In the evening, we got another nest and two more hatchlings from a different nest. These tortuguitas are hatching like crazy!!

Nest Excavations

Tuesday, August 21^st

Today was a pretty low-key day. I helped the volunteers weed around the parque and paint various animal cages. I also did my first nest excavation. After a nest is mostly hatched, you excavate the nest to see if there are any hatchlings too weak to make it out of the nest on their own. Another reason you excavate it is to see why some eggs didn’t hatch…it could be they were eaten by worms, they were in infertile, etc. The last reason for excavating is to remove all of the old eggs and bacteria so that new nests can be placed in that spot. I was able to save a couple hatchlings that were stuck on the bottom of the nest, which was great! I also had to open up the eggs that didn’t hatch to see what happened. It is a smelly job, but it is interesting to get a glimpse as to why they didn’t hatch.

Such a smelly job!

Later on, I got a migraine, so I took the night off from patrols. I really needed to get some sleep. 

Una Tortuguita!

Monday, August 20^th

I woke up this morning to take the 6am temperatures and I found one hatchling in Nest #2! I was in awe of how small it was! It was adorable. I freaked out a little because normally hatchlings come out of the nest together in groups. I immediately contacted Scott and Alice to ask if that was normal. Scott said it isn’t common, but it does happen. I measured and weighed the little one and then released it because it started to go into a frenzy. It was also early enough where it wasn’t too hot and there weren’t too many birds flying around. It made it to the ocean safe and sound! I’m hoping the rest of the nest hatches tonight! 

What I woke up to! 

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Close up 

 

The little one almost to the ocean

I made today a free day for the volunteers because it’s Mariachi’s birthday and because everyone is kind of tired. Most of the volunteers went to the bracelet class with Maria in El Dormido. The rest of us went to the tower to sleep and lay out. I found Willi in the visitor’s center playing cards by himself, so I invited him up to the tower. We played Go Fish and some game called Oreja (Ear in English). We were tied 4-4, and I ended up winning the tie-breaker!

The rest of the day was spent entering data, updating my resume, and applying for a job after this one….all in the sun of course. For dinner, Alice made us veggie pizzas! They were delicious! After dinner, 3 nests hatched. It was crazy...pretty much one right after another! It was tiring guiding those little babies into the water and making sure people and motos didn't smush them. It was so cute to see them scuttle down to the water though. It was so rewarding to see our eggs hatch and see that the hatchlings were healthy and strong. 

Clean-Up, Clean-Up

Sunday, August 20^th

Today was the weirdest crawl count that I have experienced yet! There was a heavy rain during the middle of the night, so it washed away many of the nests. However, there were also lots of tracks that led to no nests. Luckily, I talked to a bunch of locals and they were able to give me some hints. One turtle made a bunch of weird tracks, and then the parlamero picked her up and carried her behind a hedge, which explains why we weren’t able to find the nest. I found nests behind the weirdest things, but thanks to some locals now I know where to look for nests when the tracks lead to nothing.

After crawl count, I went back to sleep for awhile, which was nice because I really needed it. I have been waking up every two hours at night and going to check if the hatchlings have appeared because there is a hole developing in Nest #2. I’m so anxious for them to come! In the morning, the volunteers went and released more freshwater turtles, and in the afternoon, we cleaned all the trash on the beach and around the hatcheries. People here just throw their trash wherever and don’t think about the consequences or how ugly it looks. I’m happy because it looks SO much better now! Even Mariachi commented “Muy limpia!” 

The hole in Nest #2, which means hatchlings soon!

I also filled up turtle holes on ARCAS property. Some parlameros dig big holes, and then put the turtles in them because they can’t get out. The turtles become so stressed that they lay their eggs. Not only is it awful to do that to the turtles, but it also messes up our crawl counts because it is hard to tell when these holes have been used or not. I think I might take some volunteers later this week and fill up holes all along the 8 km that we patrol.

Found Turtle!

Saturday, August 19^th

Because the tide is so early in the morning, we have been combining crawl counts with one of the patrols. If you are lucky, you can catch the last turtles coming up to nest, which I did! I found my first turtle that actually laid eggs! I found one about a month ago, but she went back into the ocean without laying. I don’t think I have ever been so excited. I saw some tracks and decided to follow them up. It took me a minute, but then I saw her. I was with Lynn and she said that when I turned around to whisper “Turtle!” my face had pure joy on it. We both started celebrating silently. We circled the tracks to indicate that she was ours and then waited for her to finish digging. Once she stopped moving and started laying, I dug the tunnel to her nest chamber. It was so cool to feel the eggs fall into my hand…they were so warm and slimy! A parlamero saw the tracks later and flashed his light at her. I went up to him to ask him to stop and you could tell he was annoyed that we found the turtle first. We found her at about the 2 km mark, so we decided to walk the rest of our crawl count before burying the eggs. All along the way, people (mostly fishermen) were congratulating us and saying what good luck we have. My favorite fisherman, Abalino, gave me a thumbs up and said how proud he was. I liked how nice everyone was! The total nest number was 107, which is on the bigger end of the spectrum for nest sizes!

The rest of the day, I directed people around the parque like usual. I have a really great group of volunteers right now, so they have been making it pretty easy for me to be in charge while Glenda is gone for another week. At night, I went to Alice’s to have a couple beers with Lynn. It was nice to be out of the parque for a couple hours and not think about it or talk about it.

The Scale from Hell

Friday, August 17^th

The scale we have for measuring the hatchlings is completely broken, so I asked Miriam earlier if it could be fixed or replaced. Unfortunately, they have a lot on their plate when it comes it the mangrove situation down here, so they haven’t been able to find a scale. I wanted to make sure we had one for the nests coming up, so that the data is complete. Alice took me to Chiquimulilla to find the scale because there are a lot of veterinary shops in town. It is about a 2 hour commute. You take a mini-bus to Monterrico, take a thirty minute ferry ride, get on a chicken bus to Taxisco, then finally a chicken bus to Chiqi. It sounds complicated, but once you’ve done it, it is pretty easy.

The first store we looked in usually has scales tiny enough for hatchlings, but they were out of them and said they wouldn’t get more for about 3 weeks. I did get some new vernier calipers for the parque though because the numbers on the old ones had worn off. We looked in every other veterinary store, hardware store, and pharmacy trying to find a scale with no luck. It was extremely frustrating. The last store we looked in had an electric scale and I was super excited. It was quite expensive, so I decided to buy it and donate it to the parque. I was so happy to have found it! While in Chiqi, I was also able to do some grocery shopping (aka buy cheese products) and get a soda and some ice cream.

When we arrived in Monterrico, we got some doublatas and a ride home from one of Alice’s friends. It was a nice trip and I really liked Chiqi. Later at the parque, I tried out the new scale right away. It turns out that the woman in the hardware store gave us incorrect information. She said that it was more accurate than to the gram, but it actually only measured to the gram. The hatchlings are so small that the scale needs to measure at least to .1g if not .01g. After all that work looking for it, I was pretty upset. I want to gather as accurate of data as possible and this scale won’t get it done unfortunately.

I spent the rest of the day learning how to use vernier calipers. Once you figure out how to use them it’s easy, but at first it was pretty confusing. Luckily, Alice sent me a link with instructions. Overall, the day was pretty up and down and I’m still disappointed about the scale. However, it is better than having no scale.

Donation!

Thursday, August 16^th

The newly painted rocks at the entrance

This morning we painted. We repainted the turtle hospital and the holding pool as well as rocks that line the entry of the parque. It is amazing how much stuff here needs to be repainted. The sea air is so harsh on everything here. Basically most things need to be repainted at least once a year, which is crazy!

During our free time, a couple from San Diego (actually Chula Vista) came to the parque for a tour. It was nice to have English speaking visitors for once. They were super nice and took a lot of interest in everything I had to say about the turtles and mangroves. They enjoyed my tour and the cause so much that they donated 200Q! It is one of the biggest donations we have got for a tour yet! I was proud of myself for the tour and them for representing San Diego/USA well. It was nice to see Americans abroad breaking the stereotype that so many countries and people have. I didn’t mind at all that it cut into my free time!

Afterwards, everyone continued painting the turtle hospital, while I organized the office a bit. We have a lot of volunteers, so everything keeps getting done way faster than I think it will! It is great that everything is getting done, but now I have to come up with more and more things to keep people busy. I guess it could be worse!

The pool looks so pretty now!