Over the last two weeks, we’ve had 20 nests, bringing our total to 70 nests! It has been a busy period, with 16 nest relocations, many due to proximity to the sea or being in risky places like the base of the sea wall steps on Lourdas. Morning surveys have been active, with high daily emergence numbers of 32, 29, and 23, bringing total emergences to 593!
On the 25th, we had a busy evening with three relocations. The team worked to complete these relocations quickly, using pre-dug holes over at our Kanali hatchery, which can be challenging due to the rocky terrain. Despite this, all nests were moved safely and quickly, allowing us to leave the beach before dark.
On July 27th, we recorded no tracks for the first time since July 1st. Even before sunrise, all the way from the end of Trapezaki, we could hear blaring music and see flashing lights from Lourdas Beach. It was evident there had been a beach party. We walked past groups of people sitting on the beaches in the early hours, which is unusual, and saw others carrying large speakers and generators off Lourdas Beach. This likely had a detrimental effect on our nesting females, deterring them from coming up to nest. If they did emerge, they would have been spooked immediately, retreating to the sea after only a meter or so on the beach meaning any possible track would have been washed away.
Unfortunately, we’ve recently recorded a number of vandalised nest protections, with some visibly cut, ripped, or removed. Our nest protections are in place to prevent accidental human damage, not the intentional damage we are witnessing. We ask the public to help us protect our loggerhead sea turtles in Kefalonia by respecting our conservation efforts, including our nest protections.
Education Program
It’s been a busy few weeks for the education program, despite having our first morning survey with no emergences since the start of the year. Our groups’ days have been packed with educational presentations, harbour shifts, snorkel surveys, coastal cleanups, morning surveys and of course, their associated early morning starts, which we are always rewarded by the stunning sunrise when we reach the beaches. During one coastal cleanup along the Ammes coastal path, our amazing team collected an impressive 745 pieces of litter in just 30 minutes!
We’ve had the joy of presenting to engaged and enthusiastic groups who have eagerly participated in our interactive workshops. One of the favourites has been our drone and photo identification workshop, where students get a taste of Wildlife Sense’s work with drones and learn how we identify individual turtles using the unique scute patterns on their heads. These scute patterns are like a turtle’s fingerprint, unique to every individual, remaining somewhat consistent throughout their lives, unlike scars or barnacles, which can migrate or change significantly over time.
In the past week, we began surveying the seabed of Minies Beach, an area never previously observed or recorded. It will be fascinating to watch our seafloor maps grow over the coming days and weeks as we classify more of this unclassified area. Against the beautiful backdrop of Lixouri and White Rocks Beach, our groups have been collecting data on the Posidonia oceanica coverage and observing the sea life beneath the surface. So far, we’ve encountered many starfish and even had a surprise sighting of a juvenile stingray!
Argostoli Field Station
Hatchlings have arrived in Argostoli! We have had a total of 163 hatchlings from our first nests of the season and hatching is now in full swing! Our volunteers have been enjoying their Hatchling Rescue shifts and Morning Surveys looking out for hatchling tracks as well as any new potential nests.
We have once again collaborated with the Octopus Foundation and The University of Pisa to place a camera, known as the REMORA, on a turtle’s carapace to collect data on sea turtle behaviour and foraging activity. The origin of the REMOROA project is Paolo Casale, a professor at the University of Pisa in Italy. The camera was placed on Capulet, one of our tagged females. The device is released from the turtle’s carapace 12 hours following its attachment and we can retrieve the camera and collect the video footage recorded. This was an extremely exciting project which we hope to replicate in the near future!
Unfortunately, this week we were sad to receive a call regarding a deceased turtle entangled in a gill net. Upon investigation, we found that this was one of our beloved resident turtles Syna. Syna has frequented the Argostoli harbour since 2012 and was one of our largest tagged females. It was likely that Syna was nesting on our beaches this year before this incident. Syna is our second resident sea turtle to be found dead due to anthropogenic causes in the last few weeks. Dougal, a mating male, was found in the lagoon with no external cause of death. A necropsy was carried out and 9 artisanal fishing hooks and a thick longline were found running through the large intestine, determining the cause of death. The team is greatly devasted by these losses that should be preventable. We will miss Dougal and Syna greatly.
As we are now in the midst of hatching season, our team have started to perform inventories on our nests. Our hatchling rescue shifts have been doing an amazing job at monitoring the nests and checking for hatchlings. 3 days after the first hatchlings emerge from each nest, we look at how the eggs have developed during the incubation period and identify some of these different stages of development in the unhatched eggs. Our volunteers have really enjoyed observing these first few inventories and loved helping our hatchlings get to the sea!
Skala Field Station
New records are set again in our Station! For the sand dunes survey, the last record was set at 342 quadrats, which the last group has now set at 348! They all enjoyed their two weeks of volunteering with us, and exploring the island, both on land and in the water. Our snorkel bingo was successful! During their stay, they saw an octopus, a fireworm, a cuttlefish, many urchins, a couple of scorpionfish, and many colourful fishes. Some of them even were lucky enough to spot a ray during their snorkelling survey! We introduced a new activity for this group, henna night, which was very successful. Everyone got matching turtle henna tattoos and got very creative.
During their sand dunes survey they helped identify a new species, called Rostraria cristata, that’s been observed on Skala beach. Since the beginning of the season, 63,576 pictures were taken during the snorkelling surveys, which allowed us to improve the coverage and detail of our maps of posidonia on Skala and Mounda Beaches.
After saying goodbye to this group, we welcomed our last group of July, as well as a new core team member, Emma. Everyone settled in well and were eager to start their shifts. The first activity night was a success, they all loved the sunset swim and enjoyed the cool water after a really warm day.
Lixouri Field Station
It has been another busy fortnight here in Lixouri, with both nesting and hatching season in full swing. Across our beaches, 27 new nests were laid, bringing our total nest count to a massive 161. Water levels were high this week, so the team spent a morning on Megas Lakkos beach carrying out a few emergency nest relocations, to protect them against seaside inundations. Alongside our 118 emergences in the past 2 weeks, we currently have 30 hatching nests! During this very busy time, we have fully inventoried 10 nests, helping 359 hatchlings to sea. As this week commences, we have many more nests due to start hatching, with lots more hatchlings ready to be helped to sea if needed.
As our volunteers started their morning survey along the Lepeda stretch, they came across a nesting female not moving in the grass near the road. The team checked her tag numbers and found that it was Emery, who was first tagged by the night survey team on Megas Lakkos Beach at the beginning of the nesting season. She appeared tired from adventuring slightly further up the beach than normal, so the team checked she was well before guiding her back to the sea and watching her swim off.
Night survey has been slightly quieter this week, with 14 nesting females seen, 9 of which nested, including Kiara who has obtained a boat propeller strike, 18cm in length since she was first tagged and seen a month ago. Whilst some turtles are returning regulars, 4 of these were newly tagged by the team, bringing our total number of individual night survey females to 44 this season!
As the next few days progress, we are expecting to be very busy with both nesting and hatching and cannot wait to see what record-breaking numbers we hit!
Svoronata Field Station
We have a full house of new volunteers at Svoronata station who have been busy collecting data on land, in the sea, and even in the air! (#We love the birds.) The volunteers have also had the pleasure of exploring new beaches on their snorkel surveys. When adventuring out to Megali-Ammos, our volunteers saw a whole host of Posidonia, fish and even a turtle!
Our data goes into QGIS to map our findings in the water. As you can see, Megali-Ammosis is full of lots of thriving seagrass! Also on Megali-Ammos, our volunteers have broken new Sand Dune records, completing a whopping THIRTY-FOUR quadrats within an hour, which is vital to maintaining the stability and health of our beloved beach.
We have a new “bird of the week”, as our volunteers have spotted a hawk on their bird surveys at the Argostoli Lagoon. Beach cleans have expanded all the way to the Levadi Wetlands. The winner of “weirdest waste” has to be “large metal gate”!
Along with our new volunteers, we have a new member of our core team, the rambunctious “Tango”. As head of activities, Tango has been bringing us wood for arts and crafts, leading impromtu bird surveys, as well as the burden of making sure dinner is served (and always eaten).
