Our Latest News- June 5, 2024

Argostoli Field Station

The past two weeks have been very exciting here at the Argostoli field station. On the 21st of May, we had our first nest here in Argostoli on Megali Petra which was very anticipated after having many emergences over the last 2 weeks. As the nest wasn’t in a very good location it had to be relocated due to it being too close to the sea and having a shallow depth, so we took all the volunteers down to watch. The nest was moved to the back of the beach in a more suitable area to prevent inundation. Following our first nest, we continued to have more emergences on our nesting beaches followed by more nests in the Avithos region. On the 31st of May, we had our first nest in Lassi on Paliostafida followed by our first nest on Megali Ammos, one of the beaches surrounding the Airport. 

Our volunteers are really enjoying our harbour shifts and love seeing the turtles swimming and interacting in the harbour. A really important part of our harbour shifts is not only to look for interactions between turtles but to also identify injuries and issues such as net entanglement. Last week a volunteer spotted one of our known turtles Atlas in the harbour with a line attached to him. As his swimming remained normal it was tricky to identify where the line had come from. The team worked quickly to prevent any further entanglement and all volunteers on shift assisted in keeping an eye out for him Atlas was taken out of the harbour and luckily the line was removed immediately, having caused no injury. Atlas was released back into the harbour with a very good body score.

One night this week, during our sunset swim we held a sandcastle competition. The volunteers worked together to create a representation of a nesting female here in Argostoli. They included tracks and even an extended body pit (XBP). It was a masterpiece and they were all thrilled with their creation.

Skala Field Station

Strong start for the Skala station!

The first group of the season arrived last Thursday and they are already on it! Early mornings and cold water don’t scare them! They have already mapped 3.2km of posidionia, and identified 12 different plant species on our dunes! They have also participated in removing a large amount of microplastic and waste from the beaches, making them a better environment for biodiversity. 

This year we are introducing 3 new shifts in which we will be monitoring the changes in the beach topography and collecting sand samples to study the impact of the sand quality and grain sizes on the biodiversity present on the beaches. 

They are taking full advantage of our activities such as movie night and quiz night in our brand new 5 star set-up. They are also using their free time to go explore Skala to test out some of the delicious restaurants and explore the surroundings by renting quad bikes.