X-Rays, Goodbyes and Visits

Hi all, sorry for being late with the blog posts – the past two weeks have been full of action! So our x-ray arrived the week before last, and I promised I’d show you pictures, so here they are:

Imogen in her lead apron.

We had the Seychelles Veterinary Services over on the Friday and the day before we also had Arlene, a local private vet.

Mark, the X-Ray technician showing vets how to use the X-Ray

 We still need to work out a few kinks in getting the exposure setting right, but I think our first tries were pretty good!

Stinky from above

Last week I started training my replacement, Mili, Our first trapping session resulted in us catching two Black Mud Turtles in one trap! It’s a great start to her future trapping sessions. One terrapin was a female that had previously caught, named Alex (Irma’s first terrapin in a trap) and the second was a male who hadn’t been seen before. His new name is Pingu.

Mili with Pingu.

On Wednesday we had a group form the Botanical Garden of around 30 children, it was only a short visit, but it was a good way to introduce Mili to the social and public awareness side of our work.

Thursday marked the beginning of our 2-day Junior Conservation Session with the Takamaka School Wildlife Club. The kids got to walk around the wetland and the beach on their first day. We also said goodbye to Haze and Stinky and we were joined by an English family.

Stinky wandering off into the wild!

On Friday we organised a beach clean-up on Anse Intendance and on Anse Petit Police and then we finished with the kids painting and drawing inside the centre.

Our kid-themed week has continued to today, with the Save Our Seas Foundation having their Academy By The Sea visiting the centre. The wetland work that the hotel is doing is obviously beneficial to the birds, yesterday I saw three Night Herons in one place and today the children have gotten to see at least 6 Grey Herons, a Yellow Bittern and two baby Green-Backed Herons.

Night Herons in the wetland.

Academy by the Sea!

Please read the blog next week to hear more about our adventures! Also, check us out on Twitter @MCSSWildlife or on Facebook – Marine Conservation Society Seychelles (MCSS).

Sea Turtle Festival

Well the past week has been action-packed! On Friday, my colleague Savi Leblond officially opened his snorkel trail at Cerf Island Resort. It’s a beautiful trail situated in the marine park, and it promotes stricter enforcement of the marine park policies. Nearby, the hotel L’Habitation is following the resort’s example by contracting Savi to create a snorekelling trail for them too!

Also on Friday, the Seychelles Sea Turtle Festival was officially opened at the Natural History Museum.

The festival itself took place on Saturday at Beau Vallon, and the MCSS stall was a great success – with us staff members dressed up as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I’m happy to report that there were many families present at the event, and lots of children interested in learning more facts about turtles. In fact, at our stall we made sure to encourage visitors to the stall to colour in drawings and fill in interesting facts about turtles that they had learned that day!

On Monday we had a visit from Friends of the Museum  -  the children came into the centre and learned about the work we do and turtle conservation before walking around the wetland. After lunch, we had turtle games on the beach, and I think its safe to say that the children had lots of fun!

In other news, our x-ray has arrived! Mark, the X-Ray technician from PLH Medical Supplies is here to set it up and give some training sessions to staff and vets alike over the course of this week. Read the blog next week to find out more about the training!

Pirate has sailed off (Vicky's last post)

Last week we had a hotel client come visit the centre and her enthusiasm for the work we’ve achieved here was very motivating. We introduced her to each of our patients and then she accompanied us to set the terrapin traps down in the side-road ponds. It’s encouraging to see how keen some of the clients are to learn more about the centre’s projects.

Friday we released Pirate into the wild. It was the first time I assisted in a patient’s discharge so that was a great experience. We put him down next to the pond we had previously found him in and before you know it he was gone.

Last week, for the time, we also tried out the new water-quality test kit (testing for ammonia, acidity, alkalinity, nitrate, nitrite and general hardness level). We did a try out test in a side-road pond and then Friday we tested pond 2 and 3.

So my last week here at the centre is finally over. I recommend anyone who has any interest in learning about amazing endemic and non-endemic species, plants and the general wildlife of Seychelles to come and volunteer here at the Wildlife Conservation and Rehabilitation Centre. 

SOSF comes to visit

Vicky:

Last week we had a lovely visit from SOSF staff to come and explore our work here at the centre. Abbie fell in love with Project as he was finding the underwater camera lens very amusing. He is currently 20 grams, which is double his weight compared to two months ago. We gave them a tour around the entre and then brought them down to the wetland. They will be coming back but this time with a group of kids so hopefully I’ll be back to help out.

Project being as curious as ever!

As the wetland has been recently quite full we haven’t had many opportunities to do bird surveys. That being said, we did spot a few baby Chinese Bitterns last week around the wetland.

Pirate, who has been with us for two weeks, has not shown any signs of health problems so we will be putting him back in the wild this week. His left eye appears to be fully healed without causing him any distress. 

Pirate with his one good eye staring out from underneath his favourite spot in the tank.

Unfortunately we had no luck with our traps last week. The only thing we caught was a big freshwater fish that took us a few minutes to free due to its slimy scales. Hopefully we’ll have better luck this week!

Rachel:

Well tomorrow is a day filled with goodbyes as we'll be saying bye to Vicky, Pirate, Haze and Stinky. Read the blog next week to hear about our farewells!

Stinky is amongst us!

I’ve had the pleasure to spend a whole week with Vanessa here at the centre and be lucky enough to witness the arrival of our fifth patient! 

One of the maintenance staff found Stinky, a yellow-bellied mud terrapin, in the back-pond of the farmland. He found her floating with practically no movement and so immediately brought her to us. We placed her in one of the Jacuzzis and observed her movements in hope that we wouldn’t find anything urgent or serious. In the end nothing abnormal about her physical appearance was found except for her inability to dive in normally. We therefore decided to keep her under observation until further improvement. 

Stinky in her jacuzzi!

Last Friday, we had visitors from the Summer Holiday Club. These young kids were first introduced to the farmland by Dave and then taken around the wetland by Rachel, Vanessa and myself. They seemed to already know a few things as some had already visited the centre in the past and many seemed quite excited by the few birds we managed to spot. Later Vanessa gave them a presentation about the centre’s work and information about the different species of turtles found in Seychelles. The visit ended with some activities on the beach and a big smile on the kids’ faces!