A three turtle night! Not long after Kelly headed to bed, I came across a leatherback nesting just south of the first turtle location. She was already covering her nest when I came across her at around 1am. It was "Tayler" a leatherback that Niki tagged up on Hutchinson Island 10 days ago.
No more than a few minutes later I found another leatherback near the Seminole Golf Course. (You can view our entire survey area on this page - scroll south to find the golf course!)This turtle had a few interesting tags. A quick phone call to Dean Bagley up in Melbourne Beach confirmed she was one of hers! Dean thinks she was tagged in 2002, but will verify and we'll post more information later today.
The wind has blown a LOT of sargassum onto the beach last night. The ride was really tough at high tide due the large mounds of weed. Some of them were 4 feet high! I was really bothered by the amount of plastic debris mixed in with the weed. On my morning run I counted 38 plastic buckets on the beach!
I understand that Mike James (Nova Scotia Leatherback Turtle
Working Group) is a fan of the "project log" !!! Hey Mike, We know you are reading this... I think everyone would like to see some of your notes during your field season. I bet you see some neat stuff.
2 comments:
Do Dr. James' leatherbacks nest in Florida?
My friend and I saw a leatherback last night on the beach. IT was really huge. You have a good website for infomation.
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