A female loggerhead makes her way back to the ocean at dawn after laying her clutch of eggs.
This is the Mon Repos Conservation area - a critical 'dark' beach 1.6 km long that gets a few hundred nesting turtles every year.
A fabulous ice cream place near Childers (on the way to Mon Repo).
All deep red volcanic soils and acres of sugar cane.....
That is "the Hummock" on the Right - local high point and volcanic vent. There are pillow lavas on the coast.
It was Santa and his helpers at the beach on Christmas Day.
Santa's elfling hits the shore break!
It's OZ -- so of course Christmas dinner came complete with shrimp (prawns actually) on the barbi'!
Turtles are a million dollar tourist industry in the area, so we must try to sway the local businesses that the turtles are an important resource for the local identity. One approach is to get the kids to care about the turtles, in ways such as involving them in helping move nests, or even subtle influences such as this playground. Col's work on pushing for the Turtle Exclusion Devices in trawling nets was an important step in reducing mortality. Hopefully, a local businessman's efforts to accredit turtle-friendly businesses will be successful, as well. Of course the area is under pressure to build more, but light pollution must be controlled. Businesses can help by reducing unnecessary outdoor lights that light the sky above the beaches. Homes can reduce lights that face the ocean, etc.
Here we are moving a nest. If the turtle has nested in a location that is vulnerable to erosion from high tide or cyclones, we pick a new site in a safe location. Through his research, Col has determined that we have a two hour window to move the eggs. After this time, the eggs must not be rotated in any direction, and so we get in the habit of minimizing egg rotation from the beginning. Otherwise the developing turtle is torn from its place inside the shell and killed. With the techniques he has developed, he has found an 85-95% hatching success rate. Much improved from a 100% mortality if a nest is washed away! We count the eggs, which are placed in rows of ten, and then the ranger guided tour groups help us move the eggs, by carrying them to the new nest site we have dug. The newly-laid eggshells are flexible, and resilient. Small children delight in helping "save" the turtles through their assistance. This is an attempt to jump start the breeding population - the Mon Repos beach is dark sand - therefore warm. Turtle gender is 100% determined by nest temperature and this beach produces mostly females.
By saving nests, the program hopes to increase the female population and bring the total loggerhead population up out of the risky numbers it is at.
Loggerhead at dawn. Its a weird work schedule - shifts all night patrolling the beach and processing turtles, sleep and swim and check gear all day.
A few priority turtles get special treatment - this one is on the way back to the lab for examination. There is so much that is unknown about the breeding behavior of the turtles that we need to learn all we can. Long term tracking and studies of turtles is critical to their survival.
A turtle suffers the indignity of a laproscopy, where we're trying to learn more about "what makes them tick."
Nancy and Dirk ridin' herd on a 80kg loggerhead
Heading back to the surf...
A bonus! We didn't expect to see hatchlings this early in the year, but for our last night, we had two nests to keep an eye on. Sure enough, just before the end of our shift, they emerged! A mesh corral keeps the hatchlings contained while we gathered them up and take them back to the lab for measuring and photo documentation. They're amazingly strong little critters, eager to start their life journey. They squirm and flail away with their flippers - they are like little mechanical wind-up toys.
Hatchlings come out at night - partly to minimize predation under cover of darkness, but also due to sand temperature. These sands get to 55 degrees C (131 F) - hatchlings would be well cooked before they ever made the surf!
The new lights at Bargara shopping center are the big new risk. Even though they are 8 KM away they light up the salt spray and clouds and really mask the horizon. When the shopping center opened last year there were hatchlings walking parallel to the surf, heading for the lights. Some businesses have been cooperative and have been turtle friendly, others not so much so. Don't shop at the Woolies in Bargara unless they turn off their parking lot lights after closing!
Loggerhead hatchlings
We release them to make their way on their own. It's important that they make their own way down the beach from where their nest is, because they make an imprint of the earth’s magnetic field of the area, so they can return some 30 years from now to the same general area to lay their own eggs in the sand. Run, little turtles, run! We wish you a safe journey!
A nice article describing the Mon Repos turtles:
http://travelinsider.qantas.com.au/queensland_amphibious_landings.htm
An army of soldier crabs. If you were patient hundreds would appear up out of concealment in the mud
Camp motto - "if it moves, grab it and tag it!"
A bearded lizard....
Dawn
There I was, minding my own business when suddenly, WHAM, out of the dark hurtled 8 grams of flying fury - a (probably venomous like everything else in OZ!) green tree frog. It just glommed onto my hand, and would not let go.
The park is famous for its Glow worms (the larva of a large mosquito-like fly -Arachnocampa Flava Harrison) which uses webs to catch food and are bioluminescent (see http://maguires.com/glow_worms/about_worms.htm). While we were there tour buses of people showed up (about 300) and tramped through the park having the jungle trees, ecosystem, and glow worm life cycle explained in Japanese, Korean and even English! (photo = Time exposure inside the cave)
Another of the pack of deadly tree frogs - they were all around us! Up in the trees, on the railing, in the vines - we were surrounded! Only quick thinking by Nancy allowed us to escape their insidiuos stalking.....
Holidays here in OZ are pretty relaxed. Apparently, by celebrating New Year on NZ time, we missed out on not one, but two full fireworks shows up on the Broadwater. (one for families at 9:30 another at midnight)
