Follow eleven turtles as they sprint from Costa Rica to near the Galapagos. Each of them has a corporate sponsor, and at 20 miles an hour, they will get there in a couple of weeks! I think Billie’s going to win, but the leatherback turtle is in bad shape, endangered due to poaching, adult mortality and habitat loss. They may be gone very soon.
Here’s the flickr page for the race, some beautiful pictures already.
Where I shamelessly defer to the experts, just listen to the podcast from the folks at seaturtle.org and their blog, twist (this week in sea turtles).
This Week in Sea Turtles
Meanwhile, in the great turtle race, my pick billie’s back in first, chased by the Stephen Colburtle…
Depressing as always, but this is a yearly headline around turtle nesting season.
1,000 Giant Turtles Wash Ashore in India, Bangladesh
It’s nesting season for the sea turtles of Bangladesh and India, but this year the beaches where the animals lay their eggs are eerily still.
Nearly a thousand dead turtles have washed ashore along the coasts of both countries in the past few weeks, conservation workers report.
About 200 dead reptiles have appeared in the past week alone along a single stretch of beach, pictured here, in the Bangladeshi tourist town of Cox’s Bazar (see Bangladesh map).
A team of scientists visiting the beach on Monday to investigate the mysterious mass deaths concluded that fishing nets were to blame.
Sea turtles swarming the shores to nest are getting entangled in poorly laid nets and drowning, the experts told Bangladesh’s Financial Express.
The survival rate of turtle hatchlings is estimated at anywhere between 0.1 and 1%. Assuming 0.5%, this represents 20000 hatchlings. Assuming a hatching success (not all eggs hatch successfully) of about 2/3rds, that is 30,000 eggs, or between 200-250 nests. In my two years of turtle conservation work on an approximately 3 mile stretch of beach, we relocated about a 100 nests. These aren’t the same turtles (they tend to come back to nest very close to where they hatched), but there’s my two seasons of work down the drain and then some!
Turtle safe fishing is a well researched technology and is not expensive. As I have mentioned before in a similar context, the gaps between the availability of a certain technology and its actual adoption and use are depressingly huge.
When it comes to serious problems like global warming, all the talk is going to be about the cool science and innovative solutions, but how the technology transfers to India and China, how it is implemented, and the nature of the interactions between the traditional powers and the emerging ones is going to be more critical than the science. Something to remember as a scientist!
In case I forgot to mention, the Olive Ridley arribada started during the 2nd week of February, so about 50 days later, here they are, the “millions” of hatchlings.
The Hindu News Update Service
Olive Ridley hatchlings emerge in Gahirmatha
Kendrapara (Orissa), April 10. (PTI): Millions of tiny olive ridley sea turtle hatchlings are now emerging out of nests at the Gahirmatha beach in Orissa’s Kendrapara district, wildlife officials said on Monday.
The eggs laid by thousands of adult females in the Nasi-2 and Babubali islands in the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary have began to hatch over the last two days, they said.
Wildlife officials stationed at the nesting grounds were witness to the phenomenon, but tourists and researchers were not allowed into the unmanned territory close to the Wheeler’s island where a defence test range is located.
India’s intermediate range nuclear-capable missile Agni III is likely to be test fired from there some time this week, defence sources said.
You know what, the fact that this area is under close military supervision because of India’s grandiose missile dreams may not be sucha bad thing (sacrilege!!!). The area is under so much development pressure that even military operations are better than the alternative.
For more about the Gahirmatha area, visit the official website. At this point in time, the Arribada is very tourist unfriendly, and there are few, if any volunteering opportunities. I will keep any eye open for changes
Technorati Tags: olive ridley, sea turtles
ScienceDaily: Scientists Warn Of Climate Change Risk To Marine Turtles
North American marine turtles are at risk if global warming occurs at predicted levels, according to scientists from the University of Exeter. An increase in temperatures of just one degree Celsius could completely eliminate the birth of male turtles from some beaches. A rise of three degrees Celsius would lead to extreme levels of infant mortality and declines in nesting beaches across the USA.
Like a lot of other reptiles, the sex of the hatchling is dependent on nest temperature. Warmer temperatures make female turtles (my mnemonic was hot females!), and even warmer temperatures just kill the eggs. But, I wonder if the turtles would adapt by nesting a little earlier. I don’t think it is yet clear when turtles decide to nest. If it is based on sea temperature, then they would eventually figure it out. This paper from 2004 appears to conclude that loggerheads in Florida do nest earlier than before, so there is hope.
John F. Weishampel, Dean A. Bagley, Llewellyn M. Ehrhart (2004) Earlier nesting by loggerhead sea turtles following sea surface warming Global Change Biology 10 (8), 1424–1427
The onset of spring, noted by the timing of wildlife migratory and breeding behaviors, has been occurring earlier over the past few decades. Here, we examine 15 years of loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, nesting patterns along a 40.5 km beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast. This small section of beach is considered to be the most important nesting area for this threatened species in the western hemisphere. From 1989 to 2003, the annual number of nests fluctuated between 13 000 and 25 000 without a conspicuous trend; however, based on a regression analysis, the median nesting date became earlier by roughly 10 days. The Julian day of median nesting was significantly correlated with near-shore, May sea surface temperatures that warmed an average of 0.8°C over this period. This marine example from warm temperate/subtropical waters represents another response of nature to recent climate trends.
So the truth lies somewhere between easy adaptation and giant swarms of frustrated female turtles!
Where I’m a day late and a dollar short. It turns out that the Mediterranean sea is awash with plastic and most of the loggerheads there have swallowed plastic bags. So, the next time you’re out looking for loggerhead nests and find one in which all the eggs have been double bagged, do not be surprised! Now. if they start swallowing egg cartons…
Mediterranean drowning in a hidden sea of plastic rubbish – Independent Online Edition > Europe
A recent study of the endangered loggerhead turtle off Spain’s Mediterranean coast found that 75 per cent of them had swallowed plastic bags. Mr Rodriguez said: “We have to understand the sea is not a tip; it will constantly return to us what we throw in.”
Seriously, plastic bags need to go away.
You see the hatchlings as they dig out of the nests all small and helpless and make a beeline towards the sea. You see the adult female as she comes back to lay her eggs. You see adult males when you go snorkeling , but the juveniles had kept a low profile, until now…
Sea turtles’ mystery hideout revealed – LiveScience – MSNBC.com
Once sea-turtle hatchlings hit the surf, they vanish for up to five years. Where the half-dollar-size tots spend these ‘lost years’ while ballooning to the size of dinner plates has been a mystery, until now.
New research, published in the online edition of the journal Biology Letters, indicates the green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) hide out in the open ocean, where they feast on jellyfish and other marine creatures.
Turns out that they’ve been “hiding out” in the open ocean eating meat to augment their vegetarian adult diet. I have not seen the paper (reference below), but the study was based on an analysis of their shell content. Carbon and Nitrogen isotope analysis was used as a marker for diet and location.
The ‘lost years’ of green turtles: using stable isotopes to study cryptic lifestages
Kimberly J. Reich, Karen A. Bjorndal, Alan B. Bolten
Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, Department of Zoology, PO Box 118525, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA