my photos over the last few years of sea turtle work with CWC
We patrol 20 zones each about a mile. We start at dawn from May to October, due to the heat and the fact that most turtles lay and hatch in the dark.
We record the location of every nest and on some we verify that eggs are there by digging. At the end of the season we inventory which hatched and take dna samples. It’s an easy walk some days, and hard work on others.
My first egg verification during training.
Crawl with a nest at the end. We mark it with stakes and a sign too if it’s in a busy area.
These guys hatched! The warmer upper beach produces females and the cooler lower beach produces males.
If the hatchlings head into a parking lot or somewhere, we are allowed to rescue them and guide them back to sea.
An egg chamber
A storm exposed these eggs. We used to move them and dig another nest or incubate them, but that is rarely done now.
An egg for dna study.
A publicity photo of hatchlings.
Our club doing a crab trap recovery event. The traps and lines tangle the turtles.
This is what gets put into the back of my truck for disposal.
Finally, here is a large leatherback with one of our members. The nesting tracks look like a truck did donuts on the beach. We got to patrol a zone very early after volunteering as the club was sent to work in Trinidad which is where this is, and we had to cover here in Florida. Usually it takes persistence and a couple years to be selected after volunteering. Jo here has done it for 10 years.
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