Top: Adult Male. Bottom: Adult Female

Terrapin Time:

This is the first installment of “Terrapin Time” a frequent update on how things are going on the causeway with the Terrapin nesting season, and anything interesting that might occur.

The season first kicked off with a wet and muddy start when a team from UGA and the Savannah River Ecology Lab comprised of 2 professors, 2 grad students, and a bunch of their friends/classmates came down April 29^th -May 1^st and joined forces with teams from the Center to seine three creeks for Terrapins.

The idea behind the seining was to be able to get a sense of terrapin abundance around the causeway, mark turtles for recapture data in the future, and put radio transmitters on 8 lucky adult females to track their movements during the nesting season.  All of this information will help us assess the current condition of our terrapin population and guide future management of these animals.

In the three days we managed to capture 130 Terrapins total, 10 recaptured from previous studies or this trip, 102 males, and 28 Females. 8 Females were outfitted with radio transmitters and will be tracked during the season.

Despite being cut up by oyster shells, rammed into by fish, shrimp, and who knows what, pinched by crabs, and often stuck in the deep marsh mud. Everyone had a great time.

Stay tuned for more installments of Terrapin Time.

Cheers
Simon Dilts
AmeriCorps DBT member

The turtle patrol team awoke at 6am on May 3^rd, to do their regularly scheduled dawn patrol of Jekyll’s beach. It was a beautiful day and we arrived at Driftwood at 7am. It felt like an ordinary Monday, but we soon found it was not so ordinary. We found a cold and lonely fawn whom needed a friend and a jacket. We quickly covered the cold fawn with a GSTC jacket and called JIA to help save the little fella from the clutches of cold weather.

We continued on our journey and headed south when suddenly a distant indentation in the sand caught our eyes. It was the first track of the season… and it belonged to a leatherback! We immediately stopped the vehicle to investigate. We followed the track beginning at the high tide line, went in a few circles, and eventually came to the nest near the Brice street beach access point. We were overcome with joy as we had found Georgia’s first nest of the season!

She had laid her nest in a poor location, along the rock wall, so it was necessary to relocate it in order to prevent it from being inundated and possibly washed out. We called our faithful leader, Ms. Stefanie Ouellette, and she immediately came down to assist. The patrol team relocated the nest to a more suitable location farther south to protect the (hopefully) soon-to-be hatchlings.

While that has been our only nest so far, we wish the nest a successful 70-90 day incubation period and are looking forward to the rest of the season.

Thanks for Reading,

The 2010 patrol team

Integrating the natural world into elementary school curriculum can be a daunting task. That’s why the Georgia Sea Turtle Center is having its first Professional Learning Unit Course Sea Turtle School: Incorporating the Wet & Wild into the Classroom! The course, although open to all, was designed to provide information and lesson plan ideas for Georgia Educators in Kindergarten through 5^th grade that are correlated to the Georgia Performance standards. Teachers will become familiar with ocean habitats, turtles, and conservation in order to convey a greater appreciation and understanding of sea turtles, and their marine ecosystem.

Participants in this workshop will gain background knowledge about sea turtle species, their respective biology, conservation, and the threats that they face. They will also learn about conservation of other threatened reptilian species, specifically the gopher tortoise and the diamondback terrapin. In addition, participants will see how the Georgia Sea Turtle Center works to minimize effects humans have on sea turtles, gopher tortoises, and diamondback terrapins by providing the animals with rehabilitative care and providing the community with conservation education. Throughout the course, participants will learn how to plan and implement instructional lessons about sea turtles and other marine wildlife. This course will also demonstrate how teachers can encourage students to take an active role in conservation at home and in the classroom.

Sea Turtle School: Incorporating the Wet & Wild into the Classroom, will be held July 16^th & 17^th, at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. The cost of the course is $70. Teachers can download, print, and fax in their registration forms.

For registration forms and more information visit http://www.georgiaseaturtlecenter.org/education-programs/teacher-professional-development

If you have any difficulty viewing any item on the page, you may want to try using a different internet browser. You may also request more information by contacting Renee at 912.635.4076

Hope to see you there!

~Renee

AmeriCorp Education Member

Each year between the months of March and July thousands of female leatherback sea turtles come ashore to nest.  Besides laying precious eggs during their brief time out of the water, these turtles give us the opportunity to observe nesting behaviors and to give us the opportunity to gain obtain valuable research data.  Leatherback sea turtles are the largest sea turtle in the world measuring an average of seven feet in length and weighting about one thousand pounds.  Adult male leatherbacks have been documented to weigh 2000 lbs or a ton! As giant as these creatures are, their diet depends entirely upon jellyfish.  Known as the “Iron-man” of the sea turtles, leatherbacks dive the deepest and swim the greatest distances.  Their range covers all of the worlds oceans; however, their populations are unstable and their survival is threatened by many conditions both environmental (loss of habitat, food sources, predators) and human impacts (beach development, pollution, fishing industry especially the longline fisheries).  The Pacific leatherback is in greater trouble than the Atlantic and numbers have dwindled rapidly in the last decade and a half.

Here at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, we have begun our sea turtle patrol of Jekyll Island’s beaches; our first nest of the season…a leatherback!  The GSTC has many affiliations and projects around the world for the conservation and protection of sea turtles.  One such program is the St. Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network (SKSTMN) in St. Kitts and Nevis, a small island in the West Indies of the Caribbean.  In conjunction with Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST), the Georgia Sea Turtles sends staff and volunteers down each year to help with the Leatherback Sea Turtle Project, a monitoring program organized and run by Dr. Kimberly Stewart.  The GSTC staff have also conducted several health related workshops in St. Kitts and provide scientific and veterinary expertise to the program.

This year, several volunteers and staff at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center have will traveled down to help out with this project. Alicia Marin, our Education Coordinator traveled down in April and was able to establish educational sea turtle programs at hotels and resorts on the island while Steven Nelson, our Veterinary Technician, traveled down this past week to help with night monitoring and blood collection and processing for the nesting turtles.  Dr. Norton and Michelle Kaylor (Rehabilitation Coordinator) are assisting Ross University in the development of a small rehabilitation center.

Upon return from his trip to St. Kitts, Steven shared with us his experience. 

“This past week has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life, I had never anticipated the feeling you get when you first see a one thousand pound sea turtle emerging from the water on a moonlit beach.  Up close, these turtles are incredible, as if their size and strength isn’t enough, their artful instinct and behavior is amazing.  How such as giant creature can gently manipulate delicate eggs is nothing short of impressive.  Over eight turtles nested during the week of my trip, walking up and down the beach from 8pm-4am, it’s the adrenaline of finding a turtle that keeps you going.  Every turtle we came across was examined, measured, tagged and a blood sample was obtained.”  

Unlike other sea turtle species, leatherbacks get flipper tags in their rear flippers, these tags enable us to track the turtle each time they nest during a season and years to come.  Measurements of the turtle’s shell are taken to monitor growth rates.  Blood samples are collected from their rear flippers and provide information as to their overall health.  An assessment of their surroundings and location of the nests are noted.  “Due to unsuitable habitat, 3 of the 8 leatherbacks we came across needed their eggs relocated in which we relocated to suitable habitat away from high tide and erosion sites.” After about 58 days of incubation in the sand, hatchlings will emerge and make their way to the ocean where very few (1:1000) make it to adulthood.  The SKSTMN patrol team is there to help and excavates nests to save straggler hatchlings and assure that they all have a chance to at least make it to the sea without obstacles, environmental stresses or natural predation. 

“Besides spending long nights on the beach, I was also able to take part in a unique St. Kitts event called Agriculture Day, an annual event in which the entire country’s school kids are able to attend a fair revolving around animals, plants and the environment.  This was a unique opportunity because many of the students that were born and raised where leatherback sea turtles nest and frequent had no clue that they even existed.  We also shared with them the importance of their survival and the many dangers they face in the wild.“  

Even though they are endangered, the sale and consumption of sea turtle products is legal during certain months (open-season) in St. Kitts, which heavily impacts the sea turtle population.  Education is the first step towards conservation; it is difficult to change tradition and culture in a society so dependent on this resource; however, many of the local fishermen on the island have since learned of the importance of sea turtles in the ecosystem and have either discontinued these practices or have even joined the conservation efforts of the patrol/monitoring team.  Dr. Norton and Michelle Kaylor will be traveling to St. Kitts next October to place satellite transmitters on hawksbill sea turtles that would otherwise be eaten. The fishers normally killing the turtles will hopefully be engaged in the monitoring of the turtles after they are released. This is a pilot project that we hope will expand if preliminary results are successful.

“One of my most memorable moments of the trip was during our second night on the beach that week.  We were watching at 6 foot long turtle dig a nest chamber when we saw in the distance behind the vegetation line a group of dark shadows slowly approaching us.  In fear for personal safety we shined our flashlights towards the shadows and dozens of wild cattle were coming over to check out the commotion.  They get within five feet of the nesting turtle and began to intently staring at her as she nesting.   They were amazed and the look on their faces was priceless, it was one of the most unique interspecies experiences that I have ever witnessed.” 

Visit the following link for more info on the St. Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network (SKSTMN).  http://www.stkittsturtles.com/Welcome.html

-Steven Nelson, Veterinary Technician

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the students of Woodward Academy.  These bright young minds had a strong passion for the marine environment even though they live hours from the nearest ocean.

Each year the school located in College Park, GA, uses earth day as a great fund raising opportunity for earth friendly organizations.  This year they decided to send their funds to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center!  The students and teachers sold t-shirts with the GSTC logo labeled Woodward Academy Earth Day 2010.  When we heard of their efforts we were quite amazed to say the least.  When we heard the amount, we were blown away!  The students and teachers raised $2,200 for the Sea Turtle Center!  In an effort to show them exactly what their money was going towards, I stopped by to tell the stories of many of our current patients!

Most of the students had on their Georgia Sea Turtle Center attire as they entered the gymnasium ready to learn.  I couldn’t help but smile as I saw the results of all their hard work.  As I started the presentation it became clear that these future leaders genuinely cared for their environment.  They had so many excellent questions about the Center and our patients that I was unable to answer them all!  As the students filed out of the gymnasium, several more came up wanting to know more and more.  Leaving the school that day I couldn’t help but feel confident about our mission at the GSTC.

I’m confident the passion for the environment the children of woodward showed that day will be felt in the Atlanta area.  It’s great to know that even hours away, we at the GSTC have such great sea turtle ambassadors!

Thank you Woodward Academy!

Teddy Ivey, Educator