Thursday, January 26, 2017

Rescued and set free hatchlings, and a nesting hawksbill turtle: an amazing second day




Luzia!

 
Hi, I’m Luzia the new volunteer at MCSS. I’m 26 years old and from Switzerland. So far, I have rescued hawksbill hatchlings from the basement of a villa and set them free on the beach towards the ocean, and monitored a hawksbill turtle nesting. The nest was too close to the high water line, so we had to relocate the nest further up the beach.  As for the near future...we expect some baby sea turtles to hatch again next weekend.  Hopefully they will not get disturbed by lights and will walk straight to the sea.
Rescued Hatchlings


Help is on the way!

I also saw a lot of black mud and yellow bellied mud terrapins. We captured, marked, released... trying to estimate the population size. The knowledge about terrapins is extremely limited because there are almost no studies done about them.
But both species of terrapins on the Seychelles are classified by the IUCN as critically endangered. We captured a large female yellow bellied terrapin. Because she was so large, we did an x-ray of her. On the picture, we could see 18 eggs in her belly. 
Pregnant Terrapin X-ray

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