Our Latest News- May 21, 2024
This week we welcomed our third group of volunteers to the project and said goodbye to our first group of 4 weekers who were all very sad to leave after having such a good time. On one of their final evenings, we held a water fight with the core team participating too! The volunteers have settled in well indulging in pizza and participating in evening activities including, volleyball, smores and henna night. Everyone got very creative drawing turtles, flowers, whale sharks and we even had a shrimp playing a saxophone! On their days off they have been touring the island visiting Myrtos, Melissani caves and even a winery.
On Friday 10th May we had our first tracks of the year on both Avithos and Megali Petras and since then volunteers have been going out every morning to survey our nesting beaches. They have all been very enthusiastic and keen to learn about track directions and nesting attempts. On the 14th of May, our first nest of the season was laid on Megas Lakkos over in Lixouri and so a small group of our team went over to preserve and protect the nest. Since then, we have had more tracks on the Avithos beaches and also our airport beaches which is very exciting. We are thrilled that nesting season is now upon us and we look forward to more nests being laid soon.
Despite nesting season looming upon us, there have still been sightings of mating in the harbour during our harbour shifts. Whilst morning surveys have begun, we have reduced the number of tagging’s however our CMR programme is still seeing high numbers of untagged loggerhead sea turtles. Unfortunately, there have been several turtles spotted during our tagging shifts with hooks and lines. These have been removed successfully and the turtles released with a good body score.
