Milli's final blog

Milli's final blog 

Hello again! 

Another week has passed and sadly, my work experience is officially over.  

Just as predicted, there was a lot going on in the second week too;  

On Monday I visited Cerf Island to take a look at Savi's project. After the beach cleaning he taught the volunteers and me about corals, reefs, rays, seaweed and loads of other interesting facts. Afterwards, we observed sea urchins, sea stars, fish and the coral nursery on the snorkel trail and went for a little hike to the cemetery and the viewpoint, from which we had a beautiful view of St. Anne's, Ile Moyenne, Long and Round. 

Back on Mahé, terrapin traps were set up at different sites in the Anse Forbans wetland, which we checked every day, but there were no terrapins caught until Friday. Three black mud individuals had been captured by our traps, who will be measured for identification today (Monday 10th).

 

(The black mud terrapins that crawled into our traps on Friday) 

 

(One of the caught terrapins) 

On Wednesday I joined Vanessa for the Turtle patrol, but it's currently not the season for Hawksbill turtles so there were no tracks to be seen. It was educational nevertheless, because she told me about the turtle's nesting behavior, how to tell Green Turtles and Hawksbills apart by their tracks and experienced cases of poaching. 

The rest of the week consisted mainly of checking the traps, working on a new website for MCSS and starting with my big school report. 

All in all - even though it was only for a far too short time, I learned a lot about turtles, terrapins, wetlands, corals, how to use drones to create maps and gained more experience than I could have at any other workplace – I am absolutely happy and pleased with my choice of school internship! 

Greetings, 

Milena