As I had promised to inform you at the end of a previous article, I participated for a few days to the brave's multinational Archelon team's efforts in keeping the Caretta caretta hatchlings alive so that they can increase the population of this endangered species.

I would like to remind that the Kyparissia Gulf was upgraded to a National Park, just a few months ago, and Archelon is an environmental team which has successfully been helping turtles survive and reproduce since 1983 to prevent them from going extinct due to human intervention.

This is achieved by protecting turtles when they go to lay their eggs on the beach and making sure that the environment is optimal and safe for their reproduction. Also, it is important to protect the small turtle hatchlings, orientate them to the sea, understand and eliminate any possible dangers.

Starting with the protection of the hatchlings, groups of multinational volunteers travel every morning, before sunset, to each fragment of the very long beach of Kyparissia.
These groups sometimes need to use a vehicle to get to the further parts of the beach which are several kilometers away from the camping of the Archelon base.

What these groups do is primarily check for hatchling tracks. If any hatchling tracks are found, it means that that either a hatchling successfully managed to go to the sea, or that it is still in its way, given it has not be harmed by any of the dogs wandering free in the area.

When finding tracks, one first looks to see if there are any hatchlings still fighting to get to the sea. In which case an easy and smooth route is made for them on the sand (it is essential that the hatchlings reach the sea by themselves, as during this process their lungs start working and other functions are developed needed for their survival).
In addition, some of the team members stay behind the hatchlings as a shadow, as the hatchlings head to the lightest place they can see, the sea during the night.
However, when the sun rises, they may be confused.

When the hatchlings reach the sea, they fight for some time with the huge (for them) waves until they finally find their way to their natural environment and leave the beach happily.

Another thing that volunteers do is write down how many hatchlings have come out of each of the nests, most of which are already marked from the time when the nests were initially created. As a result, the percentage of turtles that come out of the eggs and make it to the sea can be estimated, so that the estimated number of turtles expected to come back to the beach will be compared to the actual number in the future, detecting therefore whether there are severe problems in their survival (e.g. fishing nets).

Furthermore, 10 days after the first hatchling is found, we excavate the nest, considering that the period in which the turtles could have possibly made it out of the egg is over.

When excavating a turtle nest, it is possible to find some hatchlings that would probably not make it out of the nest, without help, helping therefore more turtles to live.

After excavating the nest, we count the eggs that have been broken with no hatchling inside, as well as the eggs that have been broken with a hatchling inside, or eggs that have not evolved to turtles, usually because of infections. For this reason, a person in each group breaks the eggs to see their color. When it's infected it's usually pink or green and very badly smelling :( while another one writes down the results, to see what infection is most damaging to the turtles.

A last measure that volunteers have to take, to make sure that as many turtles as possible to survive is called ''Boxing''.
During the night, when most usually hatchlings get out of their nests (11pm-5am), a team surrounds active nests with boxes with very small holes on them for one hour each, while patrolling the beach for any dogs, that may harm the hatchlings.
This box traps all the hatchlings that come out of the nest. This action is made in places with lights that may disorientate the hatchlings. After 1 hour, the team comes back and makes sure that all the hatchlings in the box head to the right direction.

Lastly, to make sure that hatchlings in these places head to the right way even during the day, a short fence made of matting and bamboos, found in the area, is built closing the nest around from all directions but one, therefore forming a corridor for the hatchlings and making a shadow for them (especially during the early hours of the morning when the sun is in a small angle on the sky, so short objects make long shadows).

This support by the Archelon group is crucial for the turtles? survival, and a sign of their good work is that the turtle Caretta caretta is expanding in more and more beaches of the Mediterranean Sea.

Even though problems exist as always, because some local residents are not allowed to exploit their property as they wish, because of the problems that this creates to Caretta caretta turtles.

The passion and courage that the Archelon group shows as well as its ability to overcome these problems is a quality that probably more people on this planet should have.