Tracking Turtles and Protecting Nests
Sweat drips into my eyes, and each step sinks into the soft sand as I quietly follow Santos down the dark beach. It's just past midnight, and I can see fireflies flickering in the darkness, with the lights of Lo de Marcos, a small town on Mexico's Pacific coast, twinkling further down the shore. My eyes have adjusted to the night, scanning for any sign of a nesting turtle or the tracks she would have left behind. The radio crackles, breaking the silence, and I hold my breath, trying to translate the rapid Spanish. An Olive Ridley sea turtle has just come ashore further down the beach and started to dig her nest. We quicken our pace and wade through the flooded river that cuts through the beach, all thoughts of crocodiles and rushing water forgotten as we hurry to the turtle.
When we arrive, she has just begun laying her eggs. In a nesting trance, she is oblivious to us as we sit quietly beside her, watching her drop egg after egg, listening to her deep sighs. One hundred and eight eggs later, she pauses, exhausted, before suddenly covering the nest. She uses her rear flippers to scoop sand, flicking it with her front flippers and packing it down with her shell. It's a laborious process, but it seems quick compared to the time it took to lay the eggs. Soon, she ambles back down the beach, leaving a perfect tractor-like trail behind her before a wave sweeps her back into the sea. Just like that, she's gone, and the beach is empty once more.
We carefully collect her eggs into a plastic bag and carry them to the hatchery, where they'll be reburied in a cooler-box nest, safe from poachers, stray dogs, and beachgoers. In 45 to 50 days, they'll hatch into tiny turtle babies. Earlier today, two nests hatched, and we had the joy of helping the little turtles emerge from the sand, counting them, and, at sunset, releasing them on the beach. We watched as they made their way to the sea with jerky, wound-up-toy-like movements, disappearing into the waves. It's sobering to realize that only about one out of every thousand hatchlings will survive to adulthood. This low survival rate, combined with the many threats sea turtles face, makes every long night patrol and sleepless hour worth it. These little creatures need all the help they can get.
During our inaugural Mexico Sea Turtle Conservation Expedition, we relocated seven Olive Ridley nests, totaling 575 eggs, and released 142 baby turtles. We also helped build and paint a new watchtower to aid anti-poaching efforts and cleaned the beach of trash and plastic, which threaten turtles and other wildlife. Our expedition also donated 10% of participants' contributions to the local turtle project and provided five waterproof backpacks to the local team for use during patrols to protect their radios. The Lo de Marcos project is entirely run by local volunteers who dedicate their time, knowledge, and passion to saving these turtles, and we are grateful to have contributed to their mission.
