The world according to me....

The next step in the process

Now that the papier maché molds of the carapaces are dry, the next step is to fill them, in order to make the models that will be used in the tagging workshop at the Sea Turtle Symposium in Malaysia. One idea was to use concrete, but this was quickly rejected, as there are weight and security limits on checked baggage on airplanes. The best idea came from Catherine, who had already used self-expanding foam (aka Great Stuff) for previous models. Here she is filling up one of the molds. Although this step was relatively easy, we did have a brief moment of uncertainty. The directions on the can of Great Stuff say, “Shake for 30 seconds before application,” but we didn’t know if that referred to the can itself or the person reading the can!

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why is Catherine making a papier maché mold of this carapace?

Why, in preparation for the tagging workshop at the Sea Turtle Symposium in Malayisa in March 2003, of course. The workshop will feature hands-on training for metal flipper tags, PIT tags, and satellite telemetry tags. For the latter, some mock carapaces are needed. Fortunately for us, Catherine is not only willing to share her extensive experience during the workshop, but she also knows her arts and crafts and was able to lend a hand in preparing the models. I will try to take photos of the injection of the Great Stuff.....

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This leatherback was still nesting on the beach after sunrise when I took this photograph. There were dozens of big yellow flies biting her and sucking blood from the soft tissue around the neck and shoulders. But some flies were also focused on the pink-spot on the top of the head. The bite of these flies was shockingly painful, although they seemed largely to prefer leatherbacks to hairless apes in terms of prey.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even the hairiest ape gets tired from late night beach patrols. Particularly when you have not slept for a few days, the rain has stopped but the humidity has set in, the lack of wind makes the sand flies more vicious, and you have fallen too many times into old body pits, your patience can run a little thin. Then, when you least expect it, you see something amazing, such as this sunrise. And then you remember how lucky you are to be awake at that time, enjoying life.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Why would Johan bring his binoculars on the beach at night? To look at the constellations and star clusters, of course! I am sure everyone has his or her own personal experience of some amazing nighttime celestial event. Mine was seeing a burning ship on the seaward horizon that slowly raised itself up to become a fiery orange slice of moon.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As much as it pains me to admit it, I do like birds and particularly shorebirds. Skimmers, scarlet ibis, osprey, pelicans, piping plovers, ruddy turnstones – they are all cool. But I think my favorite is the ubiquitous sanderling. There is just something about the way they run back and forth, just ahead of the incoming waves on the beach, that I find fascinating. Their life history is also interesting, and they happen to migrate thousands of kilometers between feeding and reproductive grounds, often spanning international borders (sound familiar?). Of course, my birding friends scoff at sanderlings and don’t waste their precious binocular time on them; sanderlings are not “rare” enough for their interest. But the “ordinary” status of sanderlings is a good thing in my mind: it means there are lots around, and is a tribute to their tenacity. Sanderlings deserve more respect.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Taminho the Sea Turtle is a cartoon character created by Projeto TAMAR, and used in a variety of media. Taminho would even appear live and in color for special occasions in Brazil. These included educational events aimed at young children, special occasions, and the delivery of presents around Christmas time to fishermen in and around Praia do Forte. In the last case, even the most hardened and serious fisherman can't help but smile at the site of this oversized turtle, and the kids go nuts when they see this character walking around. In this particular photo, the person wearing the suit (Gabriel) maximized the effect by running around with the kids and insisting on driving to each little village where he was supposed to make an appearance (the site of him gingerly extricating himself from the driver's seat of a small jeep was reminiscent of hatching, and unfailingly amusing). He probably lost several kilos from sweating incessantly in that suit, since Christmas in Bahia occurs in the height of the Brazilian summer.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a photo of a juvenile loggerhead (briefly without water while the tanks were being cleaned) at the rehabilitation center located at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands. Intrigued by the clean carapace, I asked if they had removed the barnacles when the turtle was admitted to the facility. After a long pause, I was gently informed that the large loggerheads in the Macaronesian islands rarely had barnacles on their carapaces, not even the nesting females in Cabo Verde. Once again, I learned the hard way that one should always take care when extrapolating from local experience to global expectation.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not all my stories about dogs are sweet. Indeed, dogs can cause problems for turtles on nesting beaches. When in Brazil collaborating with Projeto TAMAR, I helped do necropsies on a loggerhead and hawksbill that had been killed by guard dogs when the turtles had arrived on the beach to nest. On Montjoly beach, in French Guiana, KWATA reported that dozens of adult olive ridley females were killed on the nesting beach by stray dogs in 2002. And on Awala-Yalimapo beach, in western French Guiana, street dogs often raid leatherback nests towards the end of the incubation period. Interestingly, once the dogs have finished with a nest, caracaras and vultures often will move in and pick through the remains.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Along the way I have met different dogs. Here is a story about one of them.

Lulu was a full-bred husky from Alaska that I inherited from my sister Cornelia. Yes, Lulu was struck by a car when she was less than a year old, and she lost use of her front right leg. This slowed her down only in cornering at high speeds. True to form, she loved cold weather (the more bitter, the better), but she did come to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands for a few months while I worked on leatherback nests at Sandy Point beach. For logistic reasons, she wasn't allowed on the nesting beach, but she did enjoy swimming and romping about the shoreline near the house. And she loved to run away. Normally, she would stay within viewing distance and eventually return once my voice went hoarse from calling for her. But once she took off with no intention of returning, and I had to chase her down to the beachside restaurant not too far from Fredericksted. I knew she was in there because I heard all sorts of commotion coming from inside the kitchen, and someone shouting “Get that hound out of here!” With dread I entered, and found Lulu being chased by the knife-wielding cook around the perimeter of the kitchen. I have no memory about what was exchanged between me and the chef but from then on I never let Lulu off her lead.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes, there is nothing better than going swimming au naturel in the ocean. In Brazil, propitious circumstances led me to often go swimming nude at night on a deserted section of the beach. I had to go anyway to release emergent turtles collected from nests in the hatchery. After watching the hatchlings scramble across the sand into the sea, I would peel off my clothes and go for a quick swim under the starlight. But even the most deserted beach may not be so private. When I worked on an isolated beach in Suriname, I would always wear my swimsuit for my daily swim/bath (there was no running water). But after several months of modesty, I decided one day to forgo the swimsuit and bathe in the ocean completely naked. Of course, that was the day that the head of the Nature Conservation Division of the government of Suriname decided to pay a visit. He and his aides caught me off guard (and without trunks) in the middle of my swim. His only reference to the matter was a reminder that there were many rays along the coast and one should be careful to avoid being stung by one. I always used my trunks after that, and trod extremely lightly in the water.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As much as I like to receive nicknames, so I like to give them to others. One of my favorites is Tombeur, which I gave to Philippe Rivalan after he fell into a half-finished nest cavity being prepared by a leatherback in French Guiana. The double-entendre of the definition turned out to be appropriate. However, at first he didn’t like this nickname, and I tried to explain to him that falling into nests is one of the rites of passage that everyone working on sea turtles must suffer. My personal experience in this occurred in Bahia, Brazil, when I spent one night on the beach with Manjula when she was collecting data on egg and nest size. She apparently had just received the equipment (dozens of canisters of Great Stuff) that had been held up in customs for several weeks, so when we finally came upon a nesting loggerhead, it represented the first real opportunity for her to collect data. Everything went along as planned, until the moment when we had to move the turtle off of the nest cavity. The loggerhead was heavier than I thought and I staggered a step or two, just enough to put my foot into the nest cavity that Manjula so desperately needed intact for her measurements. Now, I don’t understand Bengali, but Manjula assured me that her outburst in response to my actions was in no way bad. I am just glad she didn’t turn it into a nickname!

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The second time I made an extended visit to Brazil, I found that difficultly in communication stemmed in part from my name. This is because it is difficult for Portuguese speakers to pronounce the “th” in Matthew. Some local kids solved the problem by deciding that “Metro” was close enough. Thus a new nickname was born, and was quickly adopted. I even started introducing myself as Metro to the local fishermen that we worked with when monitoring the nesting beaches. But the nickname quickly evolved. Within a week, one of these fishermen nicknamed Cheiro came to the office to do some paperwork, and he also brought me some jackfruit, because he knew I liked it and his house had one of the few robust trees in the area. Cheiro arrived, asking: “Where is Trena? Has anyone seen Trena?” Immediately, everyone but me knew that he was referring to me. It took me a little while to figure out this was because Metro means meter, and Trena is the local word for measuring tape. But the name stuck, and I was proud of my nickname. The same cannot be said of one of the other biologists who also worked with me. Her real name was Fernanda, but Cheiro decided to call her Chupacabra.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 06:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When can a sea turtle travel more than 600 km on land in one day? When it is being transferred from one rehabilitation centre to another, of course. In this case, a juvenile loggerhead turtle that was found stranded in December in South Carolina needed a place for long term recovery before release, due to some deep carapace punctures it suffered, perhaps from an alligator attack. Unfortunately, the facilities in South Carolina are currently saturated, so the only realistic solution was to transfer the turtle to one of the rehabilitation centers in neighboring North Carolina. Hence, we conducted a turtle relay race today: DuBose from South Carolina brought the turtle to me at the SC/NC border; I drove the turtle to Wendy who was waiting in New Bern; and Wendy took the turtle to Joanne who was waiting at the NEST rehabilitation facility at Roanoke Aquarium in Manteo. When its wounds are fully healed, this turtle will be released into the wild where it will soon forget about its 10-hour road trip in several different cars and across two different states.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone asked me today to say which is my favorite kind of turtle. Upon reflection, I realized that I have been impressed more by individuals than species, in line with Mike’s or Kartik’s stories. One of my favorite stories (so far) of individual turtles dates back to the early 1990s. It was night on Matapica beach, Suriname, and I was completely absorbed while observing a nesting female leatherback drop her eggs into the nest cavity. Suddenly, I heard a loud “thump” and saw the leatherback’s cloaca and carapace shake. I looked up to see a hapless female green turtle that had inadvertently crawled into this leatherback. Then: FWAP!!! The leatherback struck out with her flipper and knocked the green turtle away about a meter. The leatherback calmly resumed depositing her eggs, and the dazed green turtle slowly made her way to another section of the beach to dig a nest cavity, ruing the day when leatherbacks were brought into this world.

Since this incident, I always enjoy the sight of two (or more) turtles interacting on a nesting beach, but I always wonder if they are as cranky when they meet by chance in the water...

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The direction of sexual differentiation in sea turtles is dependent on temperature. Cooler incubation temperatures produce males, warmer temperatures produce females, and at “pivotal temperature” equal numbers of both sexes result. Because of this, the monitoring of sand temperatures on nesting beaches has become routine in sea turtle projects. Well, almost routine. Ideally, you bury your automatic dataloggers in the sand at the beginning of the season, you dig them up at the end, and you download the data collected to your computer. Most people (including me) use triangulation to record the exact location that the dataloggers are buried, but sometimes….

Once I lost some dataloggers because the landmarks I used for triangulation were not as permanent as I thought: the old rusting car frame was mysteriously hauled away and the dead coconut tree fell over in a heavy thunderstorm. In another case, subsequently nesting leatherbacks dug up the nests and flung the eggs (and dataloggers) into the sea. And in the most recent case, the “permanent” location markers were carefully removed from mid-beach and laid on a nearby berm. Fortunately, my two co-workers dug and raked sand for two days to find the dataloggers. The data from one of them are shown in the graph.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While looking for information on turtles in the Berber culture, I stumbled across two bizarre websites associated with turtles. One has a translated story of Haruki Murakami about an incense-coil-stealing sea turtle, and the second sells thongs emblazoned with the kanji symbol for turtle. Needless to say, in both cases the context was surprising!

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looks cute, doesn't she? Turtles in tanks always do, but don't let that charismatic look fool you. They can chomp your fingers off. I saw it happen on two separate occassions, when people (who should have known better) tried to pet or feed sea turtles in tanks. I have heard stories of vengeful turtles from Larisa. My friends at the Topsail Turtle Hospital always tell me stories about the unique personalities (some sweet, others irascible) of the turtles being treated there before release. All told, the result is clear: exert caution around turtles in tanks!

Thanks to Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium for helping to rehabilitate the cold-stunned loggerhead in this photo.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Often, people want to know how I first became interested in sea turtles. I never had pet turtles or even thought about them when I was young (except when watching cheesy Gamera movies). Actually, sea turtles were just a convenient ploy to get what I really wanted: travel. It was even more specific than that: my goal was to travel to Suriname. Before I could make my trip to Suriname a reality, I had to first visit St. Croix in the Caribbean, and Boca Raton, Florida for work with sea turtles. It was during this time that the whole turtle experience grew on me, so by the time I got to Suriname, I realized that turtles were pretty cool. Since then, it has been a happy coincidence: I like working with turtles and I like travel. Indeed, I am sometimes amazed that I am paid to work with turtles….

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)