As I had informed you in a previous article, I went for a few days to the Kyparissia Gulf, upgraded recently to National Park, to contribute to the efforts of the environmental team of Archelon to protect the turtles Caretta-carreta which are endangered.

Archelon is an environmental team which has been aiding turtles since 1983 to prevent them from going extinct due to human intervention (fishing nets, plastic bags, nearby dogs which were not there before humans came).

The program that Archelon uses to help the turtles consists of two surveys, the night survey and the morning survey. I participated in both of them. The beach is divided into four sections, so that volunteers can work more efficiently working simultaneously at many places. This way, it makes sure that it finds the turtle nests as fast as possible and urges to protect them from any attacks or from people's ignorance.

During the night survey, 11p.m. to 5am, the usual hours when turtles come out of the sea to lay their eggs, teams patrol each area for two reasons, to drive away any dogs, which may damage or even kill the turtles, and also to keep the turtles safe while they are making their nest, mark the nest spots for the morning survey and take measurements as well as inject a microchip in the turtles which are not marked yet.

In the night survey, we are equipped with a soft red light, so that we can approach the turtles without taking their notice, as red light is not easily noticeable by them.
To find the turtles one needs to walk along the sea line and look for any traces.
Since it is very dark in the night, moon is usually a great help, but even without it, the lights of the city of Kyparissia several kilometers away allow some vision. When we notice a turtle trace, one person of the team, the leader sneaks to see whether there is still a turtle. Because turtles are sensitive while they are ascending, if all team approaches they may be scared away.
It is crucial that the turtle does not get scared, because if it does then it lays its eggs in the sea, which does not allow the offspring to survive. Therefore, if there is a turtle we wait till it starts laying its eggs in the hole it digs, when its hormones make it dizzy, to approach.

It is amazing how a turtle lays over 100 eggs in a period of about 10 minutes and camouflages its nest so well by making it look like it laid its eggs about 1.5 m far from where it actually did (because obviously it cannot cover its traces of coming from the sea).While the turtle is still dizzy from the hormones, we have the chance to make measurements, notice any injuries and mark the turtle by injecting a chip which can trace the movement of the turtle , and we mark the hole for the morning survey by putting a rope in the hole, while it's still open, which is tied on a piece of bamboo on the nest. Then we happily watch the turtle returning to its natural environment, the sea.

During the morning survey, one team arrives right after the night team leaves (from 5am for a couple of hours usually) and looks for any turtle traces. Turtles only nest about 35% of the times they come out, as they look for the best place to do so, so when such traces are noticed, we note the place where the turtle chose not to lay its eggs to understand what they are attracted to. The exact coordinates are marked by the help of a satellite communicating device and the distance (parallel to the sea) from bamboos which have been put all along the beach with a number on them.
When nests are found, first we look for possibly a sign from the night survey from where the nest is exactly. If not, we carefully place bamboos around a distance of radius 2 m and dig very softly with the palms of our hands. Then, by penetrating the sand with our fingers we find where the eggs lay (we feel a space below the sand). When we find the exact location of the nest we place a grid (made of synthetic materials) on it and hold it in place with bamboos on its ends to protect it from dogs which hunt the eggs. The grid is big enough so that baby turtles are not endangered and also they have enough space to leave when they come out of the eggs.

This initiative by Archelon is crucial at supporting the endangered species Caretta-carreta until it is strong enough to come to its initial levels of population, because as we all know biodiversity is what makes the environment as rich as it is.

By supporting this kind of actions we show mother Earth that we are not here to exploit species but to live side-by-side with them!

I will let you know more when I go again during August, the period when baby turtles come out.