The world according to me....

With just a few days between the end of the symposium in Kuala Lumpur and date of departure to return to North America, we decided to make a quick trip to the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, to see the beaches on the South China Sea. We went to Cherating, a small town just south of the southern tip of the state of Terengganu, which formerly hosted a major rookery of leatherback sea turtles. The beach of Cherating is quite beautiful and quiet, at least in late March. A local ex-pat told us of a sea turtle hatchery center just north of Cherating, next to the entrance of Club Med. We had to go check it out.

The hatchery was not in operation, since the start of the green turtle nesting season was still several weeks away. But there was an education center, with displays on turtles, dugongs, and mollusks, and also a murky pool with two pale juvenile sea turtles. The building was immaculate, and kept that way by the fact that you had to remove your shoes before entering. These two receptionists were checking everyone’s feet at the entrance.

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

It is the third day of presentations, and there is much hustle and bustle left in the symposium. In a few hours, the final oral presentations will conclude, to be followed by the plenary session and then the banquet. I have no idea what kind of floor show is planned for the banquet, but if it is anything like the social, it will be amazing.

There have also been side workshops going on, including the Mediterranean meeting, the Latin American meeting, the African meeting, the freshwater turtle and tortoise meeting, not to mention the far smaller and more intimate discussions among participants about collaborative projects, either ongoing or planned for the future.

The live auction was held last night, and the big news is that Frank Paladino indeed has a pit tag inside him, although contrary to rumour it is not in the rump nor was it done during the live auction in 2002. A swipe of a scanner on his midriff confirmed the PIT tag, following which he offered anyone else to verify the tag with a scanner for a $10 donation.

Tomorrow is the Marine Turtle Specialist Group meeting, followed by a special workshop on tagging. Many, particularly the students, are not thinking further than the banquet tonight, when the awards for best student presentation will be awarded.... who will it be this time?

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 01:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't even left the hotel yet....

Ok, the Legend Hotel is a huge complex, towering 33 floors above the bustling streets of Kuala Lumpur. At least, they look bustling from my hotel room window. I haven't yet left the hotel, despite the fact that I arrived here at 23:30 on Friday night. Many minor tasks and to-do lists have kept me busy, and when I have a few spare moments I usually find myself chatting with Brendan, Lisa, Kartik, Michael or Bob Prince, in a valiant attempt to catch up on everything since I last saw these folks.

A positive attribute of this hotel complex is the great food court they have in the bottom floor of the shopping mall. The culinary culture is largely panmictic, and you can get just about whatever you want, from Mediterranean kebabs to sushi to Indian curry to pad Thai and beyond. There is even a Starbucks for those of us feeling a little caffeine (or North American Culture) deprived - and they serve their coffee in ceramic mugs by default!

Tomorrow I have promised myself to at least cruise around the nearby streets to experience a bit of KL, perhaps I will see some of those mudskippers that Jeanette keeps urging me to find. I lent my guidebook to Neca and Cecilia from Projeto TAMAR, but I think they need it more than I do: they are going to make a day trip to the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, in search of coastline. "We can't travel all that way here and NOT visit their beaches," Neca told me. She is completely correct, of course.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arrived!

Mee Goreng = fried noodles with vegetables, tofu and chicken. This was lunch for us in the shopping complex next the hotel. A few participants have arrived yesterday and today, and we are slowly trying to get resynchronized to this timezone.

More soon.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 03:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lots of people report seeing “albino” hatchlings when excavating nests. But strictly speaking, albinism means lacking melanin and hence no pigment. All albino animals have pink eyes, because without any pigment the blood vessels in the eyes are visible. In contrast, most “white” turtles remaining in nests that already emerged usually lack only some pigment, but have dark eyes. When kept in captivity, these “amelanistic” turtles will develop darker colours on their carapace as they grow, as I was told by Henk Reichart. He used to be involved with a green turtle ranch in Suriname, and often raised these “white” hatchlings in captivity, and saw them become progressively darker with age.

When I first went to Brazil in 1995, I saw in captivity an amelanistic green turtle (photo above) and a true albino loggerhead, complete with pink eyes, (it was one of 22 produced from a single nest in southern Brazil). Note how the green turtle in the photo has some dark colour (melanin) in its carapace. As Henk had predicted, this turtle became darker over time, and the last time I saw it (December 2002), its flippers and head had become darker. I forgot to take a photo, but you can see a recent picture here. In contrast, the albino loggerhead hatchling died within a year, as had most of its nest-mates. I believe that only one albino loggerhead from this nest still survives at the Ubatuba aquarium, near São Paulo, and it is still white with pink eyes.

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

Well, hard to believe it but we are finished with the false carapaces, to be used at the tagging workshop in Kuala Lumpur next week. I should have known the first day I saw Catherine’s foam carapaces roll away like tumbleweed in the wind, that it would have been a challenge. But I hadn’t realized just how much of a challenge! First, we forgot all the ingredients, but that was easily remedied by visiting the cafeteria. Second, I had gotten the “wrong kind” of newspaper, fortunately Catherine had gotten some "just in case." Then, Catherine’s dogs ate the first two papier-maché molds - no easy solution there. Next, we didn’t put enough foam in the molds the first time around so several of the finished carapaces looked more like crab-pot buoys. Despite such adversity, we persisted and here is Catherine putting the finishing touches on the final products earlier today. We even had unsolicited comments from passers-by that our “carapaces” looked very nice. However, I think this attests more to general politeness than our artistic skill!

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 02:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I had thought that papier-maché molds would have been easy to make, but I was wrong.

Originally, we were supposed to paint the molds today, but earlier this morning Catherine had warned me that something was not quite right. Alas, for some unknown reason the papier maché became contorted during the foam curing process, and we were left with forms that did not even slightly approximate carapaces (but they would make fine crab-pot buoys). When I showed one to Larisa, she couldn’t keep from laughing, and she refused to hang it in her office. Fortunately, Catherine saved the day by borrowing more flour from the Duke University Marine Lab cafeteria, and we were suddenly making two new papier maché molds. At least we are getting proficient at doing papier maché (although not as proficient as others).

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here at the northern limit of the nesting range of loggerheads in the West Atlantic, winter is slowly coming to an end. Increasing water and sand temperatures mean that soon nesting females will be coming back to lay their eggs on our sandy beaches. Although I enjoy all aspects of working with sea turtles, there is nothing quite like the sight of a tiny hatchling scrambling from its nest to the ocean, except perhaps a whole group of hatchlings marching together towards the surf.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)