Just a few lines...

This week at the centre I’ve gotten started with the bat surveys, surveying around the reserve for the endangered sheath tailed bat. No bats have been detected yet, but we aim to complete around 20 surveys over the next few weeks, so fingers crossed! The reserve contains the type of habitat that these bats have been known to forage in so we are hopeful.

Only one terrapin was caught this week, a recapture named Pingu who we last saw just last week! At the centre we’ve had lots of visitors including two little helpers this Friday, who came along on our beach patrol and learnt all about turtle biology.

We have found a new species!

 We’ve also been continuing with bird surveys and this week we spotted a Blue Seychelles pigeon, it’s nest and also a sun birds nest.

Rain, terrapins, hatchlings & Bats!

Introducing Cholo!

This week saw the passing of a big storm, the rain came down non-stop for three full days and the terrapin tanks had to be frequently emptied to remove all the rain water. The water levels in the wetland were extremely high and some parts of the road became flooded. We have had just two recaptures this week, both black mud terrapins and both recaptures; Pingu and Polly. In addition we were given a very small hatchling terrapin named Cholo by the hotel staff.

 This is very exciting as it suggests that we definitely have breeding populations of terrapins on our wetland reserve! A few months ago we were capturing several pregnant terrapins and now that we are seeing hatchlings we are beginning to learn more about their reproductive biology. Other news from the centre; the bat detectors have arrived on site and I’ve spent part of the week assessing the wetland for good survey routes to begin surveying for the Seychelles Sheath Tailed Bat.  More updates to come!

Holly's experiences so far......

My name is Holly and I joined the MCSS team two weeks ago, I’ll be updating the blog for the next couple of months. Last week bought the release of our smallest ever caught terrapin, a black mud terrapin named ‘Mini Me’ who weighed only 6! Terrapin trapping has been fairly quiet, only one Black Mud terrapin was caught this week, a female who I named Snorkel. We took her X-rays and marked her with purple varnish before releasing her back in to Pond 2. On Tuesday we conducted the monthly water tests and found everything was in order.

So small!

Introducing Minime!

We have also been conducting bird surveys on the wetland and creating new maps of the wetland area using GPS. This is so that we can refine our maps of the terrapin trapping sites and help us to do some spatial analysis of the monitoring data. We’ve made a major development on the Grand Police Wetland! We can now confirm the presence of a new endemic species; an endangered Caecilian called ‘Frigate Island Caecilian’ that Inga caught this morning with the help of a local expert. The discovery of this mysterious amphibian reminds us how important the wetland reserve is! He was very active and had to be sedated for his X-ray, after collecting some data he was released back into the reserve.

We are currently setting into motion plans for surveying the bat populations on our wetland reserve. We already know we currently have a strong population of fruit bats and we are hoping to find the endemic Seychelles Sheath Tailed bat; Coleura seychellensis. This species are incredibly endangered, listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the IUCN redlist with fewer than 100 individuals thought to be left on the island. These surveys will involve taking Bat Detectors out for transect and point surveys. More news to come!

Introducing Laura!

My name is Laura and I came over from the UK to volunteer with the centre for three weeks. So far, my time at the centre has been very interesting. After a bit of orientation and adjustment to life in the Seychelles, I quickly started to feel like a true member of the team at MCSS.

What a catch!

5 in 1 trap!

In my first week we’ve done lots of terrapin trapping in the nearby ponds - there had been no trapping done for a month before I arrived. On Tuesday we checked the traps we had left overnight to discover we had caught five terrapins in a single trap, a new record! They were all Black Mud Terrapins, and included Sharky, who had previously been rehabilitated and released by the centre in April 2015. It’s good for us to recapture terrapins that have been at the centre before, so we know the rehabilitation worked! There were also two terrapins that had not been captured before, so one was named Julia and I got to name another - Mercedes. Mercedes was a big individual with a feisty attitude - which is why I liked her! After taking measurements, x-rays, and photographs of all the terrapins, as well as marking their shells with nail polish, we released them that very same morning. We will continue trapping in several sites, so hopefully we will find lots more new terrapins.

Releasing the terrapins

 As well as working with the terrapins, I’ve also been on a few turtle patrols on the nearby beaches. Although it can be hard work in the heat, it’s definitely worth it when we find some turtle tracks or even a new nest. Last Friday Vanessa and I got a call from Mary and Jon on Anse Intendance - there were hatchlings emerging! That was the first time I’d seen wild turtles and it was an amazing experience. Then on Wednesday I saw two adult hawksbills, one on Grand Police which was just leaving the beach, and the other on Intendance. That was the three-legged turtle that had laid there before. It was really cool to watch her as she covered her nest and then made her way to the sea - definitely one of the best wildlife experiences I’ve had!

Turtle encounter

  I’m really looking forward to seeing what the next two weeks will bring - hopefully lots more terrapins and turtles!

Busy Busy

The girls from the Maritime Academy have been kept busy throughout the week.... sea turtle encounters....... beach profiling..... bird surveys and terrapin trapping were the main tasks being conducted...... here are their updates for their second week of attachment: 

Angelique's side of the story......

Making sure the Jacuzzi is a homely as possible!

Second week of attachment at MCSS has been very intriguing. We had more than one terrapin but, we had three new, one black mud and two yellow bellied. The biggest one goes by the name Kim and the other chichi. I also went patrolling on the beaches of Baie Lazare and Babarons which I didn’t even know existed. We x-rayed a bat, she was a girl. Mary gave her the name Luna even though she was dead but we didn’t get the chance to do anatomy on her ......shame, maybe next time.

Also we came across a turtle with only three flippers; she came to lay on the beach of Intendance. I found it shocking but really amazing that she could dig her chamber.

And lastly doing beach profiling , not easy at all especially when its very sunny. You have to concentrate, especially when measuring the slope degree which didn’t seem easy for my colleagues!

Aishah's review for the second week......

This week was a tough one with beach profiling. It was really hot but I actually enjoyed it .Once I was given the instruction of what to do, it was pretty easy, we made it fun and laughed throughout but managed to get all the necessary measurementsaccurate.....especially when it came to using the Abney Level.

We didn’t get much turtle encounters this week, mostly tracks because of the low tide.

We got the chance to x-ray a dead fruit bat which had been in the freezer for a week and wow did that smell, but it was really cool.

And not to forget the bird transects which is personally my favorite thing to do, not a big fan of birds but its something I look forward to do each time.

Beach profiling Anse Corail

Trainees at the Centre!

Since Monday the 16th we 've had  2 trainess from the SMA- Seychelles Maritime Academy. Aicha and Angelique are doing their work attachment experience and

have been helping us out with all the projects and different tasks at the centre, here's their brief sum up of their first week with us............

The girls cleaning Baby Projects' tank

Angelique checking out the traps

Since we started our work attachment with MCSS at the Wildlife conservation and rehabilitation centre at Intendance it has been very interesting so far .We got the chance to see our first turtle nesting, it was really exciting actually. We came across some really slow turtles but we did enjoy their company seeing them through the whole process of nesting. Unfortunately we came across only Hawksbill turtles because they nest during the day as for the Green turtles they nest during the night mostly.

Apart from sea turtles we also work on Terrapins. We put traps around the wetlands, we haven’t caught as many terrapins as we thought but we did came across one while walking near the streets and named her Wilelnina. When we x-rayed her we saw that she was full of eggs and that was great because we thought she was just fat!........ But she seemed healthy enough so we let her go.

To sum up, the environment is very nice, we felt really welcomed. Vanessa, Mary and Lynn the ladies at the centre are so nice and friendly. We really appreciate what they’re doing. We are going to make our last three weeks working here very fruitful.

Banyan Tree Blog – 2^nd Week Nov, 2015

This week the Wildlife Conservation & Rehabilitation Centre welcomed Johanna who is a vet working with Wildlife Vets International on Tuesday 10 Nov. In addition to bringing us some much-needed veterinary supplies, Johanna lent us her expertise by giving our current terrapin patients a quick check-up. She confirmed our initial findings and gave the patients a clean bill of health which means that they can now be released into the wild as per the Centre’s Policy.

The expert checking out our patients

Johanna also conducted a demonstration Post Mortem on a dead moorhen the Centre’s staff members had found the previous week while out putting traps in the wetland. She certified that the moorhen had been hit by a car, proof of which we got not only from the post mortem but also from the X-Rays taken from the state-of-the-art veterinary portable X-Ray the MCSS purchased from funds partly sponsored by the GoS-UNDP-GEF project and partly raised by Madaline Cole’s family & friends.

An x-ray of a Moorhen

   The post mortem served three main objectives. Firstly, it was to allow Johanna to teach us the anatomy of the bird and help us identify bone fractures which in her view are usually easy to diagnose and treat. She highlighted methods we can use to treat such fractures and precautions that we need to take while giving care to the injured bird. This is important given the population of resident birds in the Banyan Tree wetland.

Conducting the post mortem

On Tuesday afternoon Mary and I finally received the hook which had been found lodged in the back of a nesting turtle’s neck the previous week. It was a Banyan Tree staff member, Randy Camille, Senior Security Supervisor, who had encountered the turtle in front of the Rhum Shack on the Intendance Beach out of working hours, and had subsequently taken care to remove the foreign object from the injured turtle’s neck. Randy is a turtle enthusiast who is always willing to lend us a hand and his enthusiasm and compassion are greatly appreciated.

The nasty hook!

So last week I had hinted at the drought we had experienced in terms of terrapin trappings and I had indicated that we sorely missed our lucky charm to change the tide in our favour. Well, this week I’m utterly pleased to report that things are looking up. Mary is now firmly back in the fold and has already started working her magic. We are putting in mostly day traps in the wetland this week and on Wednesday afternoon we had a Black Mud Terrapin capture in Pond 7. It is the first time the Centre has captured any terrapin at this site and we have established that Ray, the terrapin is in fact a new sighting whose details have since been uploaded to our Terrapin Catalogue. In addition, a Banyan Tree staff member brought us a female terrapin found in one of the Villas by a hotel guest. This success was followed by yet another capture on Thursday. This time we caught Carl in Pond 1; it’s the second time Carl has been caught in our traps, the first time round we caught him while trapping in Pond 3.

On Thursday we also conducted our monthly Water test where we get water samples from different ponds and test them for the following: Ammonia, Acidity, Nitrite, Nitrate, Alkalinity and GH Hardness. The aim is to make sure that the water is safe for the different species living in the wetland, and if it’s not, to alert the hotel so that they can do further tests and take immediate corrective measures. The results show that the water is safe for our wetland species.

Conducting the water tests