Like it or Not

This rogue crustacean is often hated by turtlers worldwide because of its taste for sea turtle eggs and hatchlings. Yet, the ghost crab (here: Ocypode quadrata from the U.S.) is one of many animals potentially responsible for a healthy dune system, a vital habitat for any sea turtle species.

Just as data suggest that sea turtles are important nutrient importers into the dune ecosystem via nest deposition, ghost crabs are constantly bringing nutrients into their subterranean lairs in the form of tide-deposited flotsam. Ghost crabs will eat just about anything and often store food stuffs in their holes, which are most often located on the beach from the tide mark to the lee slope of the foredune, occasionally crabs create burrows past this area and closer to the ecotone (where the dunes and woods meet).

Animals such as ghost crabs are just one way that the relatively xeric dune environment receives nutrients. Without such nutrients the plants responsible for dune growth would not grow and the sea turtles would not have suitable nesting habitat. Now, the question is, how much do ghost crabs contribute to enriching the dune ecosystem with nutrients, compared with other dune denizens? A good dissertation for any interested.

Maybe folks will think twice before killing these potentially beneficial neighbors of nesting sea turtles.

The Tease

Despite appearances, she's a very demanding turtle and quite picky too.

This girl pictured above is called 'The Tease'. The first time we saw her was by sheer luck. Ace turtler Dave Veljacic just happened to be cruising the beach at 6:00 in the evening when he stumbled upon our first turtle of the season (2001). She did not receive her nickname until her next nesting events, these ones after dark.

One night we encountered this turtle crawling back to the ocean, she had crawled about 50 yards until she hit the woodline, passing by really good dunes. We looked at her tags and saw her off. Later that night she came up again and again we found her returning to the surf, this time with bloody flippers. She had crawled again to the woodline and on her way back she crawled over and destroyed a Yucca, a Spanish Bayonet plant, so-called because a blade can be driven through a hand like a knife through butter, no kidding.

Later that night she crawled again, this time she entered the woods before turning around and crawled through a stand of cacti. We found her with jumping cacti (small ball-like cacti that aren't rooted) all over her neck, one eye, and flippers. Needless to say, dawn came and she was obviously taking the rest of the night off.

The next night she earned her nickname as she crawled two more times, both times into the woods and through good nesting habitat. No nest yet.

Finally, on the third night of crawling, after two more false crawls, we call them 'dry runs' on Wassaw, she nested on a high dune. It is quite amusing to see a turtle slide down the face of an 8 foot dune like a sled. She seemed quite surprised when she reached the bottom.

For the rest of the season it was the norm for her to tease us several times before actually depositing a nest.

If it Looks Like a Loggerhead...

As many of us know, loggerhead turtles called 'northern subpopulation' genotypes and 'panhandle subpopulation' genotypes in the Western North Atlantic Ocean, particularly the US, are candidates for 'uplisting'. That is, these 'distinct' genetic stocks should be considered endangered under the US Endangered Species Act rather than their current status as threatened, another category offering animals protection under the ESA.

According to the proponents of uplisting these genetic stocks, an endangered classification will make it easier to implement the temporary closure of fisheries that affect these two subpopulations. However, the petition presented to the federal government suggesting the uplisting is vague. For example, what are the proponents asking for? If we are to believe that the proponents are asking that all turtles derived from rookery beaches where northern and panhandle subpopulations nest and hatch then there is an implementation problem that should be apparent to anyone truly interested in conserving sea turtles.

What problem is that? Well, both northern and panhandle loggerhead turtles have wide distributions in the US: the US coastline abutting the Western North Atlantic Ocean. There is no geographic structuring of these subpopulations outside of the nesting females and I'm not so sure that the 'subpopulations' of nesting turtles are as rigidly structured as the journal articles make them out to be anyways (i.e. mitochondrial DNA only tells half of the story, what about the paternal characteristics of DNA with respect to structuring?).

Moreover, several studies, also using mtDNA, have shown that northern subpopulation turtles and panhandle turtles are sympatric with loggerheads from south florida (southern subpopulation) and Mexican Caribbean loggerheads (Yucatan subpop.). So, if these two subpopulations are listed as endangered, then how do we enforce their new status when a dredge or a trawler kills a loggerhead turtle that could be from south Florida, Gulf Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mexico or maybe even from the Mediterranean (yes Med turtles occasionally seek holiday in US waters). Easy, a lab runs an assay on the dead specimen to determine if the vessel killed a threatened or an endangered loggerhead. However, this may take some time as I've worked with geneticists before and their analyses are either lengthy or they get paid by the hour. But, what if we are talking about a dredge that kills a loggerhead? The dredge will have to suspend operations until the origin of the killed loggerhead is determined, remember this can't be done by geographic locality. While the dredge is on the hook the taxpayers lose thousands if not millions of dollars waiting to see the fate of the dredging operation. Also, in the past, which for now is also the present, loggerheads are considered a dime-a-dozen by many feds. Hence, dredges are allowed to take or kill many loggerheads when compared to the number of ridleys they are alotted each fiscal year (October to October). If some loggerheads are listed as endangered than this will undoubtedly cause many dredging jobs (beach nourishment and channel deepening) to be prematurely stopped or outright canceled. This is where the water begins to get muddy.

Big business (capitalism) depends upon overseas exports and imports and many Americans depend upon dredging to protect their coastal residences, many of whom are politicians or rich folks that fund political endeavors. This puts the loggerheads, not just the endangered ones, in a precarious position. If the loggerheads were to become an impediment to vital operations such as dredging, then those who have supported the uplisting have set the loggerheads up to become an enemy of progress, like the spotted owls. People who usually paid not mind to loggerheads or those who thought they were neat animals could ultimately change their minds about the conservation of these animals if their business, livlihood or property was in jeaopardy because the turtles were now considered 'endangered'. We saw the same with shrimpers regarding TEDS in the late 80's. Remember, to most people a loggerhead is a loggerhead and no matter how much you point at one from Florida and say it is different than the ones from Georgia, they aren't going to believe you. They all look like loggerheads! Thus, should we really be using genetic subpopulation data to tailor the ESA?

I say no. The above is just one example. Any human activity that directly impacts loggerhead populations will be affected somehow if some subpopulations are listed as endangered. Pick an operation and image how it will be affected and how a person's opinion of loggerheads could quickly change.

Another point of many on this topic is data. There are data which show a precipitous decline in northern subopulation nesting. However, other data sets report the contrary. The latter data sets were not used in the uplisting petition.

Also, where is the data which irrefutably documents the decline of these loggerhead subpopulations by comparing contemporary data sets to base-line data, and I'm not talking of nesting data. I want data from true turtlers, those who work in the water capturing various loggerhead lifestages. To my knowledge, this data is being collected only now.

I think as turtle conservations we need to heed the warning of Nicholas Mrosovsky. He offers that as sound biologists we should not participate in 'Hype' to usher in the conservation of sea turtles. That is don't make the picture look worse than it really is unless all signs point to such. New data may ultimately document the true status of loggerhead subpopulations, which is why such studies should be encouraged.

The Relativity of Hatchling Fitness

Among the many en-vogue areas of sea turtle research, many individuals have become interested in studying hatchling 'fitness'. That is. based upon an array of various biotic and abiotic factors experienced by multiple nests over the course of a summer, how do these conditions affect the morphology and physiology of emerging hatchlings.

The term 'fitness' implies that we as researchers already know what makes a 'super-hatchling' - a hatchling capable of successfully making it to post-hatchling and juvenile nursery areas. Obviously, we do not. Some research suggests that nests incubated in drier areas produce hatchlings different from nests incubated in moist environments. Some of these hatchlings are larger and swim relatively slow whereas other hatchlings are smaller but swim faster. But what kind of hatchling is best suited for life away from the nest? Again, we do not know.

My opinion is that this type of research is all relative, as are nest hatch rates. To understand my view we must first journey away from the long, expansive beaches of Florida and move northward to where turtles nest on Barrier Islands.

Barrier Islands are seperated from one another and from the mainland by large tidal rivers, whose beaches on the north and south ends of islands are frequented by loggerhead turtles. Radio tracking studies in Georgia have shown that if hatchlings enter these areas during an in-coming tide, they are swept up the rivers and into the marsh rather than making it to the open ocean. Chances are these hatchlings use up valuable energy trying to fight the tide or they are eaten by the plethora of estuarine residents before the tide shifts and an out-going tide carries them out to sea. Nonetheless, these hatchlings are not immediately embarking on a journey to the southeastern North Atlantic nursery grounds and probably never will.

Additionally, we must think of the moon. I have seen nests with over 90% hatch rates where none of the hatchlings have crawled to the ocean. Instead and because the moon is over the western side of the island, the hatchlings follow the natural light into the woods.

We must also think of wind. I have seen hatchlings enter the surf at 3:00 in the morning only to be in the surf still at 6:00 am becasue off-shore winds have made it impossible for the turtles to venture past the breakers and to the open ocean. In these instances, diurnal predators like birds find these little ones easy pickings.

I'm sure there are many more examples that can be used; but from the above observations one really has no choice but to think that we really do not have a good grasp on what factors are truly responsible for determining which hatchlings will make it to their nursery areas. If a turtle doesn't emerge from a nest under certain conditions, (low wind, moonlight that doesn't confuse the turtles, out-going tide in some areas) then it doesn't really matter how 'fit' a turtle is, the couch potato turtle gets sucked up into the marsh along with the athletic turtle.

Them is Fightin' Words

In response to Michael's malicious comments regarding the definition of a true turtler (i.e. one who works with turtles in the water; afterall, any hairless ape can walk the beach in search of turtles). I disagree and feel that I can expand accurately because I have worked from the beach, water and air to study turtles.

All three platforms have their pros and cons and all can be very tedious. True, anyone can walk the beach in search of turtles, this is especially true in areas with very little tidal amplitude, basically the beach stays the same all the time with respect to the height of the tide. However, in areas where there is a large tidal amplitude, finding turtles can be difficult and sometimes dangerous.

On Wassaw we can have 100 yards of beach at low tide and then have water rushing into the woods at high tide. Try finding a turtle nesting at the base of a 100 foot tall pine tree, where there are no crawls to follow and only the sound of twigs snapping to locate the beast.

Occasionally, we have to plow through miles of thick, never been timbered, maritime forest to get from point A to point B until the tide receeds. We battle the tide and often swarms, no... clouds, of insects. Mosquitoes are nothing when you've had the opportunity to experience sand gnats, hence Savannah naming their minor league baseball team the 'Sand Gnats'. This hiking is done when temperatures are 80 degrees at midnight!

In some weeks we have logged over 90 miles of hiking in order to patrol a 6 mile stretch of beach, continuously, every night in order to observe as many turtles as possible. Now, here is where you seperate the turtlers from the tourists. Each season we see over 80% of the turtles that nest on Wassaw, sometimes as many as 99%. You can teach a hairless ape to walk the beach looking for turtles, but you can't teach them how to patrol those beaches with the efficiency to find over 3/4 of the turtles that nest there in a season.

My utmost respect to all of those TURTLERS that spend many night's battling the elements to find turtles on the BEACH!

When there is no paper but you got a Sharpie marker

Manjula's tale of waterproof paper and data scratched on vegetation reminded me of an incident, which happened to me once and I'm sure happened to others as well: A windy night was responsible for taking all but a single data sheet into the Atlantic Ocean. Rain had soaked the remaining sheet and rendered our only ball-point pen useless (as always, underprepared on nights when the turtle activity coincides with bad weather).

Luckily, epibiont surveys had required us to carry several permanent markers with us for labeling jars. These markers also proved useful for what we call 'Temporary-Tattoo-O-Phobia' - the fear of having to use a Sharpie marker to record all of your data onto your body and the bodies of your crew members because you have no data sheets. I had a PIT tag number on my forearm for a week.

He fakes, turns and shoots...Denied!

During the summer of 2001 I was working my second week of the season on Wassaw Island. Loggerhead nesting was appreciable, the bugs weren't bad and the plumbing rose up against us. My comrade, David Veljacic, and I discovered a blockage in our cabin (there was water pouring out of the kitchen sink and the shower).

We found the source, the gray water pipe (dispells shower and sink water) was plugged up at the drainage ditch. In ascertaining the situation we were savagely attacked by seed ticks (ticks as small as a printed period). The arachnids had even invaded our most treasured body regions.

Nonetheless, we tried to snake out the pipe but the tip of the snake broke off in the pipe. Then we tried to disconnect the entire plumbing line that we had just dug up. The pipe wouldn't budge. We had no choice but to hacksaw the pipe.

As we cut the pipe we heard an eerie sound, sort of a belch/growl hybrid. As we removed the cut pipe a gray mass of 10 years of soap scum, kitchen grease, sloughed skin, hair and whatever else imaginable rushed out of the pipe. All of these items seemed connected and moved down the hill to the ditch like a snake. We felt our stomachs curl as we looked down to find ourselves coated in the same slime and we weren't even wearing gloves or shirts and probably no shoes either. Anyways, we dubbed the beast "the Albino Ditch Monster".

We dug out the gray water ditch and connected and reburied a new pipe. The water was working well and the week moved along. Two days later the refrigerator (propane) caught on fire and lit up the cabin. Luckily the fire was put out immediately. I called Kris Williams and she arranged for a new refrigerator to be brought out in two days.

Two days later Kris shows up and offers me a night off. I would come back to the island the next day after I went home to get rest. The next day I return to the island and Kris tells me, "WE GOT A LEATHERBACK NEST LAST NIGHT AND WE TAGGED HER!"

The first documented leatherback nest on Wassaw since research began in 1973. All was not lost though. Her nest hatched and I got to see the hatchlings. They were smoked in a race by a nest of hatchling loggerheads.