Welcome to the New Year! 2015 has so far been off to a
tremendous start, with the Conservation Team already having had four turtle
encounters and many new nests. More excitingly, our centre is steadily creeping
closer to being officially open as our brand new pumps and filters for the
breeding and rehabilitation tanks have arrived.
The pumps have appeared just in time to welcome our new
guests; Stumpy, Fatso, Rambo and Sharky. These four terrapins are just the
beginning of our breeding program and if you want to know more about them,
please read their bios coming up in the next blog post.
Additionally, the start of the new year marks the beginning
of hatching season. As such, the Conservation Team has begun to dig up old
nests that are two weeks past their estimated hatching date to calculate egg
clutch survival and hatching success. It was in one such nest near the Rumshack
at Intendance that a Conservation Team member found over a hundred hatchlings,
biding their time before emerging. After consulting the Turtle Patrol Team who
luckily were close at hand, it was decided to bring the hatchlings to the
high-tide line and allow them to make their own way down the beach. This meant
that the hatchlings would face fewer obstacles and be less likely to get stepped
on later in the day as the Rumshack got busier. To their delight, many guests
and tourists got to carry some hatchlings as we attempted to get them to the
high-tide line as quickly as possible. Daytime emergence for hatchlings is not ideal
as the weather conditions can be too hot for them to handle. Fortunately, the
sky was overcast and we managed to move all of the hatchlings within ten
minutes.
After waving off our adorable friends, we counted the number
of eggshells left inside the nest. As I’m sure you can imagine, counting the
moving hatchlings as they sped off towards the water was a tad difficult. The
nest was 100% successful, with 143 eggs all hatched and no signs of predation.
Unfortunately, due to disturbance both natural and anthropogenic, not all nests
are as successful – but it was the perfect conclusion to this happy event.
Continue reading our blog to hear more about turtles and
terrapins and read our next special blog post dedicated to the Conservation
Centre’s new terrapin guests!
