This year Vanuatu was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the countries in the South Pacific where a satellite tag would be attached to a nesting turtle. So on Thursday Lui Bell from SPREP (South Pacific Regional Environment Programme) offices in Western Samoa arrived.
Over the last few years SPREP has been working with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to place satellite tags on nesting turtles in countries throughout the south pacific. The idea behind this is to track the nesting turtles back from their nesting beaches, which they only visit every 4-7 years, to the foraging grounds where they spend the rest of their life.
Some of the turtles that they have tracked in the past have traveled over 3,000 km between their nesting beaches and their foraging grounds. And with the large size of some of the turtles that have been recorded nesting in Vanuatu they must be coming from some very productive foraging grounds.
Due to it’s proximity to the capital city/international airport and due to the number of turtles nesting on it’s beach the site at Moso was selected as the place where the satellite transmitter would be attached. So after a quick stop in town we headed directly out to Moso.
The high tide was quite late on Thursday night so we didn’t encounter our first turtle on the beach until after 12am. With the turtle on the beach our work really began. The beach over at Moso can be a bit tricky in that when the hawksbills go up into the bush to nest they don’t always find a great spot on the first try. Or in this case on the 3rd try. But eventually she did find a suitable spot, dug the nest, laid the eggs, and covered it all back up. All this by 3am.
While I was waiting for her to finish a couple of the guys hiked back to the village to bring a boat around the island and take us back to the village. That was a very long ride….in a very small boat….with a very large and unhappy turtle. Eventually we made it back to the village though and we started the process of attaching the satellite transmitter.
It was 6:30am as we arrived back in the village so we tried to be as quiet as possible getting the turtle back to the bungalows to attach the transmitter. Anyone that has been to Moso though knows that being quiet early in the morning is a bit of an oxymoron. But we justified ourselves with the knowledge that since that group of volunteers were finished and leaving that morning they would either sleep right through the noise after the big goodbye party the night before or they would want to get up early to see the turtle before they left.
I should probably explain now that the way they attach the satellite transmitters is to fiberglass them onto the shell of the turtle. And it takes several layers to make sure the transmitter is secure. And each layer has to thoroughly dry before you can put the next one on. So a bit of a hurry up and wait process that takes the whole day.
But this meant that everyone in the village had a chance to pass through during the day to see us putting the transmitter on. The school came down too and the kids got the chance to give the turtle its official name. They chose Leileo, which means a lady that we’ll watch as she goes away and come back.
It was a long day but by about 4pm we were finished and a bunch of the guys from the village carried Leileo back to the sea and sent her on her way.
