Just before the government shut down and work got really weird, I went on vacation. Surprisingly, work sort of followed me to the beach.
It was a normal day at Mexico Beach, and I was out for a walk to the pier when I saw two grandmotherly women digging in the sand. Not just in the sand--in a sea turtle nest. The nest was one of about six between the hotel and the pier, and I'd passed it every day. I'd been seeing them for years--the little metal grates covering the sand where eggs were assumed to be, the orange tape blocking off the area, the bright yellow sign informing beachgoers that it was a federal crime to disturb endangered species. So when I saw these little old ladies digging up the nest, I was too shocked to know what to do. How dare they?! While my coworkers were analyzing the costs and benefits of loggerhead sea turtle conservation in the Gulf of Mexico, probably at that very minute, those horrible women were digging up eggs.
Well, as I walked very slowly by to see if I was somehow mistaken about where they were digging, I noticed this little sign: Turtle Patrol of St. Joe and Mexico Beach, Florida. I guess these women weren't deserving of my wrath after all, but still--what were they doing?
Answer: rescuing sea turtles! A few days after the eggs are assumed to have hatched, volunteers like these women drive from nest to nest, checking for any remaining baby turtles or unhatched eggs. (Sea turtles, you may not know, lay their eggs under the sand and the hatchlings dig themselves out, then following the light of the moon to the sea. They make the journey by night to minimize the risk of predation, but unfortunately baby sea turtles have very high mortality rates.) By the time the volunteers get there, most have escaped, but this bucket-full of turtles was trapped under a hard layer of sand. The women would take the bucket to the turtle conservation department, and they would be released under cover of night. In the meantime, though, they were available for admiring by curious beachgoers like myself!
From this whole bucket of baby turtles, only one is expected to survive the transition to the ocean life. Nature can be brutal sometimes. It's just not fair. They're so cute!!
I mean, look at those tiny flippers! And the tiny shell and cute crackly head pattern. (I am 95 percent sure these are loggerhead turtles... any ecologists want to confirm that?)
We weren't allowed to hold the turtles since they are endangered, but the volunteers took one out for us to look at more closely. They seemed particularly willing to humor me, the smallest girl around, probably thinking I was a kid. Then Grandaddy spilled the beans that I have a master's degree in environmental science (meanwhile Rebecca was wearing the SNRE shirt I bought her--maybe they thought we were a whole family of environmentalists). The whole time I was thinking, how long until I can retire and volunteer to play with baby sea turtles???
Sadly, although the women were able to rescue this bunch from under the sand, we watched them dig up another nest where three little ones hadn't survived. Mother Nature can be awfully tough on these little cuties.
It was a normal day at Mexico Beach, and I was out for a walk to the pier when I saw two grandmotherly women digging in the sand. Not just in the sand--in a sea turtle nest. The nest was one of about six between the hotel and the pier, and I'd passed it every day. I'd been seeing them for years--the little metal grates covering the sand where eggs were assumed to be, the orange tape blocking off the area, the bright yellow sign informing beachgoers that it was a federal crime to disturb endangered species. So when I saw these little old ladies digging up the nest, I was too shocked to know what to do. How dare they?! While my coworkers were analyzing the costs and benefits of loggerhead sea turtle conservation in the Gulf of Mexico, probably at that very minute, those horrible women were digging up eggs.
Well, as I walked very slowly by to see if I was somehow mistaken about where they were digging, I noticed this little sign: Turtle Patrol of St. Joe and Mexico Beach, Florida. I guess these women weren't deserving of my wrath after all, but still--what were they doing?
Answer: rescuing sea turtles! A few days after the eggs are assumed to have hatched, volunteers like these women drive from nest to nest, checking for any remaining baby turtles or unhatched eggs. (Sea turtles, you may not know, lay their eggs under the sand and the hatchlings dig themselves out, then following the light of the moon to the sea. They make the journey by night to minimize the risk of predation, but unfortunately baby sea turtles have very high mortality rates.) By the time the volunteers get there, most have escaped, but this bucket-full of turtles was trapped under a hard layer of sand. The women would take the bucket to the turtle conservation department, and they would be released under cover of night. In the meantime, though, they were available for admiring by curious beachgoers like myself!
From this whole bucket of baby turtles, only one is expected to survive the transition to the ocean life. Nature can be brutal sometimes. It's just not fair. They're so cute!!
I mean, look at those tiny flippers! And the tiny shell and cute crackly head pattern. (I am 95 percent sure these are loggerhead turtles... any ecologists want to confirm that?)
We weren't allowed to hold the turtles since they are endangered, but the volunteers took one out for us to look at more closely. They seemed particularly willing to humor me, the smallest girl around, probably thinking I was a kid. Then Grandaddy spilled the beans that I have a master's degree in environmental science (meanwhile Rebecca was wearing the SNRE shirt I bought her--maybe they thought we were a whole family of environmentalists). The whole time I was thinking, how long until I can retire and volunteer to play with baby sea turtles???
Sadly, although the women were able to rescue this bunch from under the sand, we watched them dig up another nest where three little ones hadn't survived. Mother Nature can be awfully tough on these little cuties.
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