floridaleatherbacks.com -

frustrated turtle

katharine — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:04:20 -0400

There were two turtles last night in Jupiter. The first was a turtle seen in 2001 named Ridgey. When she was first encountered in 2001 she did not lay any eggs even though she tried very hard. Since she did not drop eggs, there was never an opportunity to properly tag her but she did have a very distinctive scalloping on her left rear flipper. In 2003, a turtle with the same problem tried nesting in Juno Beach and this time she was named Alice. The beginning of this season Chris spotted her again and remembered the scalloped rear flipper. After looking through files and blogs, we realized Alice and Ridgey are probably the same turtle. Last night she was attempting to nest in the Inlet project area. She would dig a little bit then try to deposit eggs, then dig a little more and try to drop eggs again. She repeated this for almost 30 minutes. At one point she got so frustrated she slapped her rear flipper down causing sand to fall into her egg chamber and then tried nesting again. Every time she tried dropping eggs you could see the strain in her rear flippers. We are very confused as to why this turtle can't lay eggs because she appears to be in excellent health. Since leatherbacks in Florida have such low site fidelity, we don't know when and where we will see her next. Hopefully next time we will be able to come up with some answers. The second turtle was Lily and had a much easier time laying eggs. She is new this year and was first seen 10 days ago nesting in Juno Beach.

lucky turtle pants

katharine — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:48:19 -0400

We were starting to get a little sad because we had not seen a leatherback since Saturday night. But thanks to Sara for wearing her lucky turtle pants, we saw three last night! Rhoda, Tirzah, and Deneen. Rhoda and Tirzah nested together in April and were about 50 meters apart. Last night they were on complete opposite sides of the beach, but they came out of the water at the same time. They must be best friends! It was our first time seeing Deneen since 2005 and we expect to see her a lot more this year.

Nothing tonight

leatherbacks — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:46:35 -0400

No leatherbacks have been spotted tonight along Juno Beach and the rest of our survey area. It is not that boring out there since the loggerheads are starting to nest in pretty good numbers now. Sara and Niki are out there now and have reported about 15 loggerhead nests so far.

Last night we found one turtle nesting right here near the Marinelife Center. Her name is Tuga and she is named after the leatherback turtle on the Go Diego Go show for kids. Tuga attempted to nest on Singer Island the night before, but she spent a lot of time and effort on the beach blocked by chairs near the Hilton hotel. They have many cabana chairs that are left on the beach each night and the chairs often block nesting turtle from accessing the high beach. Tuga probably spent an hour walking back and forth between the chairs before giving up and heading back to the ocean. She laid a good nest less than 24 hours later here right by our office!

busy night

katharine — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:49:08 -0400

Last night started off a little sketchy with the return of the kibs (killer invisible beach scarps). After two very slow, careful passes north, I found a loggerhead nesting in the Jupiter Inlet project area. There have been a couple of loggerhead false crawls in the project area over the past few nights, but this was the first nest that we had to move. After we finished moving the eggs around 3 am, I was heading back to the office for lunch when I found Reeves nesting just north of the Jupiter Reef Club. Reeves wore a satellite transmitter in 2006 and followed an almost identical path up to New Jersey as Julianne. We also had a new turtle, Lily. We ended the morning watching a loggerhead return to the ocean a little after sunrise. It was a good night!

New turtles

katharine — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:03:44 -0400

This weekend Chris and Niki found three new turtles! Friday night, Chris had a turtle that had already been PIT tagged by researchers at UCF in Melbourne Beach, named Mattie. Mattie is the second turtle of the season from Melbourne. It's pretty neat that leatherbacks in Florida have such a big nesting range. Joe and Thomas, volunteers at the Marinelife Center, finally got to see their first leatherback of the year on Friday. She was also new and Joe's daughter named the turtle Delilah. Niki had another new turtle, Roomba, on Saturday night in Lost Tree Village. Sunday night we saw Tirzah. Tirzah is new this season but the first time we saw her there was only enough time to give her one metal flipper tag. So last night we gave her a PIT tag and another flipper tag, took measurements and a genetic sample, and thoroughly looked her over for injuries.

There are 42 nests in Juno and Jupiter, 4 in MacArthur Park, and 9 on Singer Island. We are a little behind last year's nest total, but not by much!

just one

katharine — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:34:34 -0400

We only had one nest in Juno last night, but it was a really good one! Libra was first seen in 2002 and then again in 2006. She is our biggest turtle yet this year, her carapace (top shell) alone was 165 cm or 5 ft 4 in long! Besides a small notch in her left front flipper and a small scar on her right flipper, she was perfect! It was awesome to see such a huge, good looking turtle.

Good turtle night!

katharine — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:56:18 -0400

Last night was our busiest night this season, we saw 5 turtles! The night started off a little rough, the high tide made it difficult for us to get through most of the survey area. As soon as we were able to get on our way Chris spotted two turtles in MacArthur Beach State Park, Snowbird and Eve, and I found a new turtle near the Reef Club in Jupiter. Lisa named the new turtle Katabatik after her cousin's sailboat. Katabatic means "down hill wind" in Greek and it seemed very appropriate for the cool, breezy night. After seeing those three turtles, we kinda thought we were done for the night but then Chris called with another new turtle that Kelly named Elizabeth. Then I spotted one more new turtle in front of the Reef Club named Irie, which refers to positive emotions and peaceful vibrations. It was a very exciting, busy night and it seems that the season is really starting to pick up now.

finally!

katharine — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:52:01 -0400

After three nights without seeing a leatherback, we saw two last night! Chris saw Sugaree on Singer Island and I saw Espina near the Civic Center in Jupiter. Both turtles are new this year, but it was the second time we saw them nesting. Espina nested in the Jupiter Inlet beach restoration project area, so we moved her eggs to a safe place. Her clutch was huge! 102 good eggs!

a good couple of nights...

katharine — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:56:35 -0400

The past two nights we have been busy with turtles. Last night we had three turtles. Midge, Taylor and Julianne. It was the second nest of the season for both Midge and Taylor and it was our first time seeing Julianne this year. In 2006, Julianne briefly wore a satellite transmitter and we were able to track her movements all the way to New Jersey. We were happy to see her back in Jupiter.

The night before we saw three turtles as well. Bella, Icy and a new turtle. Since we take genetic samples from every turtle we encounter, we believe Bella and Icy are related and it was pretty neat to see them in the same night. Icy had new injuries since the last time we saw her. She had a somewhat fresh wound above her left eye and another one on the top of her head behind her pink spot. We noticed blue paint in the cut above her eye, which makes us think she was hit by a boat.

Do sea turtles need antibiotics??

leatherbacks — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:47:28 -0400

Last night, Sandy had a very exciting recapture on the south end of Singer Island (Palm Beach Shores)
I was in the office when she called to say she found her first leatherback turtle of the season. She told me the turtle’s name, and I quickly looked her up in our database and told her who it was. After a few minutes of chatting about her first turtle, I realized that it was Venus! We all thought that we would never see Venus again after her last encounter in 2006.

Venus had been hit by a large boat just prior to nesting that season and it was very hard for us to watch her crawl up and down the beach and throw as much sand as she did. The boat had severely lacerated her carapace and the wound was bleeding and full of sand and debris. She seemed to put a lot of effort into making her nests, even though she was bleeding from her cracked open carapace. Many of us that observed her, really thought that there was little chance for her to survive her terrible injuries.