26 January 2010: 400 Nests & First Hatchlings!

The night monitoring teams became complete on 3 january 2010 with arrival of Mike Williamson from Sheffield, England. With the night teams now fully complete, the hatchlings and predation monitoring work is in full swing, the only problem being that the hatchlings are taking their time to hatch.

One of the night teams witnessed the first hatchling run for the season on 24 January 2010. Unfortunately, only 4 hatchlings reached the water as the rest of the clutch was taken by a single fox. The fox was unconserned by the presence of the night team on the beach and continued to pick off hatchlings, coming within a foot of the team. in accordance with gnaraloo night monitoring protocols, the night team collected the required data but did not interfer with the predation. The data will feed into the season's research work so that a better understanding may be gleaned of nest emergence success rate and predation pressure on hatchlings at gnaraloo. Once this is determined, in conjuction with State environmental agencies, appropriate management activitis will be identified and implemented to protect the turtles.

On a brighter note, we have now officially reached the 400 nest mark! It is generally considered that a breeding beach needs to have at least 300 nests per season to be considered to be a significant turtle rookery. Scientific data collected at Gnaraloo since 2008 indicates that the breeding areas at Gnaraloo, stretching from Gnaraloo Bay north, are significant turtle rookies. Considering the daily commitment and work involved in undertaking the Gnaraloo turtle Conservation Program, it is rewarding to see the nest numbers of these nedangered marine species adding up and coming to the realization that the Gnaraloo breeding beach areas are important contributors to global sea turtle population numbers.

With over a month of nesting activity remaining, we may reach a phenomenal 500 nests in the turtle rookies being monitored at Gnaraloo! Until next time.

Amy, Jessica, Serigo, Pursha, John and Mike