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08/05/2009
What's involved?
Hi! My name is Katie and I'm a 16-year-old high school student in Summerville, SC. I first heard about the Learning through Loggerheads program from some very good friends of mine on Edingsville Beach who gave me all the information I needed to catch my interest. I had previously volunteered with them (and others) on Edingsville for the past two summers, doing similar things to what we do on Botany with the LtL program.
Meg, one of the founders of LtL, has me signed up to work Monday through Friday, so on each of those days, we meet at the Serpentariam and all ride down to Botany Bay Plantation where the 2 ATVs are stored. Once we're there, we go down to the beach, looking for nests as we ride down to the end. Everybody has a different schedule, so, one day, there might just be two people working and the next day, there could be five! Either way, you're guaranteed to meet everyone at least once. For those that may not know, the tracks of a Loggerhead sea turtle are relatively easy to spot, even while riding down the beach, especially at low tide, when there are no shells to disguise the tracks. In my opinion, it kind of looks like a small tractor has plowed its way out of the ocean and up into the dunes.
Probing the nests is one of the more difficult parts of this whole experience, if you're looking for accuracy on the first try. The good part is that the turtle often leaves signs to point us in the right direction so that we aren't probing til sundown, trying to find the eggs. For example, sand that is packed down tightly, vegetation that is still rooted, or the presence of several shells are a few of the signs that tell us that the eggs probably aren't located there. However, if the sand is relatively softer in one particular spot or if the plants are no longer rooted to the ground, it is a likely location for the eggs. Sometimes, it might be a false crawl, in which case the turtle didn't lay eggs there. If it does turn out to be a nest, we would cage it to protect it from predators and mark it so we know where it is when the time for an inventory (counting hatched eggs, etc.) rolls around. We also record the data in a notebook, which is later entered in the computer. You can view it at this website: http://seaturtle.org/ .
I have been fortunate enough to meet and interact with some of the other interns. Megan is our head intern, an 18-year-old from Wyoming. I have also met Bernard and Keona who are working with the LtL program for their second times around. I will go into more detail about the three of them in the coming weeks as well as the Bermuda Exchange Program that Megan is a part of and the inventories that occur later in the summer.
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