April 1st 2025
Hi All - well, we are close to the opening of the 2025 Sea Turtle Nesting Season - 29 days!
The Volunteer Applications have been sent out, many have returned them - I thank you for that. If you still need to do this action, the deadline is April 6th and several of the days are already full. There is still room on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.
Here's a quick summary of our 2024 year's nesting stats, recorded from seaturtle.org:
- 20 Nests
- 28 False Crawls
- We relocated 10 nests, 50% of our nests were relocated
- Hatch Success 71.1%
- Emergence Success 64.8%
- Nest Success 95%
- Beach Success 41.6%
If I look at our history of nesting sea turtles, we should have a busy year.
Coyotes are still are biggest predator on the beach, but those pesky Ghost Crabs are in second place. I believe placing the cages on our nests as soon as they were laid, helped with our Coyote predation issue.
Myself and the LOAs will be busy getting things ready to go for May 1st. I am hoping to have the final Volunteer Listing for them before I leave for Brazil, April 8th. I am sure they will be reaching out to you when this listing is received. I will be back in town, late April 20th. After I get back there is only a few things left to be done to start the season.
Mark your calendars, I have scheduled a Meet and Greet meeting for Saturday, April 26th. It is not a mandatory meeting, but is especially nice for our new volunteers to come out to meet myself, the other LOAs and to see where you will be meeting in the early mornings. I will be sending out an email with time and location information for those who have not been out to Waties Island.
Many thanks to the returning volunteers, and welcome to our new volunteers.
Leslie
