Another good night for the project! I went up to Hutchinson Island last night at around 9pm looking for Amelie. I drove frantically along A1A in the rain for quite a while without hearing her familiar beep from the VHF receiver. Kelly was down at the MLC and gave me an update on her last reported location and I headed south to find her signal - it was weak, but I had found her! She was to the south of me and I was concerned that she may have been on the south side if the St. Lucie Inlet. I was very relieved to find her near Bathtub Beach swimming happily offshore! After about a half hour of listening to her, I finally heard a distinctive signal. She was close, really close! I pulled out the night scope and saw Amelie emerge from the large swells right in front of me. It was really cool to see a turtle emerge from the water where I expected at the time she was expected!! I don't ever think I will forget the image.
I watched her crawl up the beach and start to dig her nest. Jeanette Wyneken and her group from Harbor Branch came down to watch as we removed the harness/transmitter and checked her out. She was perfect! Sometimes the harness can irritate the carapace of the turtle a little bit, but she was in great shape! We watched her finish her nest, cover it up and crawl to the water. I gave her a pat on the back, said goodbye and thanked her for her help in unraveling the mysteries of our Florida leatherbacks. We put a lot of effort in trying to find Amelie over the last few days. Want to bet that she will be back here on Juno in ten days?!
Here is an aerial view of the area where she nested
No comments:
Post a Comment