Our Latest News- July 30, 2025

Education Program

Another wonderful fortnight completed at the Education Programme as we near 40 nests in the Lourdas area – with the end of nesting season approaching, will our turtles have one final flurry to see us over the 40 nests mark? 

We’ve enjoyed seeing many visitors and locals reading our hatchery signs, and we’ve even had some visitors to our nest hatchery too.

The high temperatures have made our snorkel surveys especially revitalising in the beautiful sea, and our volunteers were lucky enough to be joined on the surveys by some exciting wildlife- such as octopus and turtles from a distance! 

Unfortunately, we also reported a dead turtle on Kanali beach. This is something we witness all too often, sadly, and we handle the event with care and compassion when exploring the possible cause of death. One group of volunteers were present when we discovered it, so they were able to be a part of the process and assist us. Despite the sad situation, it is an important part of the work we do. It was informative for our volunteers to see, and a motivational reminder for us as we continue our rewarding work.

Skala Field Station

Another productive two weeks here in Skala, with a record-breaking number of quadrats collected by our fourth group of the season on their sand dune surveys, totalling a whopping 511! They also managed to cover 24km of seafloor with 11.2% of the photos taken classified as containing posidonia as well as seeing a variety of sea life during their surveys, including an eel.

They took full advantage of their days off with tours, beach activities, and spent afternoons relaxing by the beach. We now welcome our fifth group, who have arrived along with a heatwave. They are not letting the heat stop them, however, as they get stuck into the activities and their first few shifts.

Demonstrations had to take place in the garden due to the heat, but the volunteers didn’t let this phase them as they were enthusiastic about learning all the new techniques and getting to know each other with an icebreaker and various activities. To make up for this rocky start, however, our first snorkel shift of the group spotted a loggerhead turtle among the seagrass – what a fabulous start for our next two weeks!

Svoronata Field Station

Professionalism at its finest! While participating in a snorkel survey, volunteers observed a female loggerhead turtle in her natural environment from a distance. Despite their excitement, they were still able to perform their jobs accurately. Measuring the depth of the water we survey is important for an accurate measurement of the seagrass growth. This goes to show how hard work and dedication can bring great rewards.

Our newest group of volunteers recently learned about the importance of light pollution. Going out during the darkest nights of the month allows us to observe the biggest sources of light pollution on our local Kefalonia beaches. This is vital information to know because it allows us to know which beaches will cause the biggest issues for nesting female turtles and newly hatched turtles when they are trying to find their way into the ocean. A hatchling’s instinct is to go to the brightest light source to get to the ocean because the moon used to be the brightest light that would guide them there.

Now, with so many beach bars and restaurants leaving their lights on at night, hatchlings are more drawn to those lights rather than to the moon, disorienting them and increasing their risk of injury. Light pollution surveys allow us to gather information to show local beach bars and restaurants to dissuade them from keeping bright white lights on and discuss turning lights off so that nesting female and hatchlings are not harmed.

Lixouri Field Station

Hatching season is in full swing in Lixouri! Inventories have been taking place, new field assistants are arriving and being trained up, and volunteers are having the privilege of experiencing both new nests and hatching nests on their morning surveys! In the midst of the heatwave- volunteers and staff have been working hard to ensure all hatchling and adult tracks are being recorded! 11 nests are currently hatching or have completely finished, and 23 new nests have been recorded in the last two weeks. This is incredibly exciting for everyone to watch all of our hard work, protecting and checking nests, come to life! 

Alongside this, volunteers have been keen to participate in evening shifts such as beach cleaning. Here, not only are we helping keep beaches clean, but also recording the correlations between the distribution of plastic pollution and its density on our beaches. Most importantly, volunteers have been collecting rubbish off the beaches no matter whether on the beach clean shift or not!  

Those on night survey are still experiencing nesting females, including Danielle who has now nested for the fourth time this season! The first nest that the team witnessed Danielle lay is due to start hatching any day now!

Argostoli Field Station

Argostoli has been very busy over the past couple of weeks with our first nest inventory of this season, along with rescues and many nests! Argostoli has finally reached over 100 protected nests for this season, and we still anticipate more to come! Over half of these have had to be relocated to a more suitable placement, and some have been moved to different beaches as the beach they were laid on will soon be completely inundated by the sea.

We have had 3 rescues in the past few weeks! One turtle was spotted last week by two of our volunteers who had seen a turtle that was not moving on the surface of the water, with minimal front flipper movement and no diving. Our team rushed to the harbour with the drone and equipment and managed to locate the turtle and bring her out of the water. She had no visible injuries or issues, but was untagged! She was later tagged and named Matilda, and she was safely released back to the sea. She was then observed exhibiting her usual behaviour.

In other exciting news, nine of our nests have had hatching emergences, and our overnight Hatchling Rescue shifts have begun, which our volunteers are loving! 

Nesting season is still present, however, with nests being found daily and our volunteers enjoying having an amazing experience seeing relocations, inventories, as well as taking part in our other shifts and evening activities. One evening included three relocations as well as a very competitive sports day on the beach, with both staff and volunteers taking part!