By Nicole Owens
Arriving to Barahona beach
IOI volunteers accompanied park rangers of Galapagos National Park, who traveled from Santa Cruz Island, as well as some passionate local community members on a three day camping trip to learn about sea turtle nest monitoring.
The goal was to learn about green sea turtle nesting and how to gather useful information on their nesting habits to aid in conservation research. The green sea turtles are one of four species of turtle found in Galapagos.
Green sea turtles are endangered due to threats of habitat loss, predation and destruction of habitat due to introduced species (dogs, wild pigs etc), pollution and rising water temperatures. Over the past few decades, less and less of these marine animals have been arriving to nest on Galapagos shores, and national park researchers are hoping to identify the causes. In order to do so, they need more information. This information can be obtained by monitoring the turtles to obtain data such as the sea temperature, the location of the nest, the size of the turtle and the number of eggs laid.
Learning about turtle tracks, nests, and behavior
The volunteers and national park rangers embarked on a short boat ride to Barahona beach, a popular spot for turtle nesting, a few hours west from the town of Puerto Villamil. They brought lots of supplies to last all three days and set up camp just beyond the mangroves at the top of the beach.
The first afternoon, the park rangers took us on a walk down the beach, pointing out turtle tracks and helping us to identify whether the large pits in the ground were actual nests (usually with a large pile of fresh sand at the back to cover the eggs, and tracks coming and going in two different places), or just a body pit, a large hole dug by the turtle and then abandoned before nesting. They explained that the turtles usually leave a body pit if they decide the site is not suitable for nesting, generally due to the presence of vegetation, the temperature of the ground, or the density of the sand (too loose or too hard packed). The turtles can dig several body pits in one night, or loop around the beach and return to the ocean without digging anything at all.
A park ranger from Galapagos National Park measuring the turtle after she’s laid her eggs
Turtles generally nest in the evening, so we went on late night and early morning walks (from about 10pm-12:30am and 5:30am-8am) to try to spot the tracks while they were fresh. We wore dark clothes and used only red lights to avoid scaring the turtles, as they are unable to see the color red. We braved a steady rainfall and chilly winds the first night, but were rewarded with three separate turtle sightings. However, only one of them actually nested. We laid down at the edge of the nest, after the turtle had finished laying, to see into the cavity where the eggs were laid and counted all 83 of them! Then, park rangers measured the turtle and marked the nest with a stake. The rangers clipped a tag onto a less sensitive skin flap on the front flippers for tracking in the future. We returned to our tents drenched and covered with sand, but very excited by everything we’d gotten to see.
A park ranger gathering the bags of trash collected
The next morning, we woke before sunrise to go in search of more tracks. We spent the afternoon playing in the ocean and recovering on some much needed sleep. We spotted all kinds of marine animals, such as rays, turtles, pelicans, iguanas, and even an octopus! Later in the afternoon, we took a walk down the beach as a group to collect the plastic bottles and other garbage that had washed up on the shores of Barahona. We filled up at least seven large trash bags, and even found a refrigerator door! We went on a final monitoring walk that evening, before waking up bright and early to pack up camp and head home.
It was a very exciting trip and we learned a lot of new information about sea turtles, their behavior and their nesting. We hope to help maintain plentiful nesting sites on Barahona and the other Galapagos’ shores in the future, in order to allow these graceful marine animals to continue to play their vital role in the Galapagos and other marine ecosystems.
