A volunteer's Diary, 2008 (2)
Massive Dent in Numbers
So Busy, and so Sad to say Goodbye to
Four Fantastic Volunteers
MERHABA! Well, what
a week! This week we
have sadly had to say
goodbye to four of our
fantastic volunteers. It
was really sad to have our first big
departures, but we didn’t have time
to dwell on it for long — with so
many leaving it made a massive dent
in volunteer numbers, leaving us
with only 10.
There has been no room for
slackers this weekend! As usual the
Karpaz and the west coast still
needed to be monitored, so two
volunteers were sent to each. This
left us with six at our main base until
we welcome two new arrivals at the
beginning of the week.
Volunteers on our project come
from a variety of different
backgrounds, but are mostly
university students from the UK who
study a biological or conservation
subject. Each not only gives up their
summer holidays from university to
work on the project, but also pays
£750 for the privilege. In return they
gain valuable experience of fieldwork
and data collection techniques, as
well as taking part in a well-known
conservation project and getting to
work closely with marine turtles.
Volunteers spend anything from one
to three months here. For further
details on volunteering for future
seasons have a look at our website,
www.seaturtle.org/mtrg, which is full
of information.
Volunteers spend their time with
the project rotating between our
different bases. Our main base is in
Alagadi, the “Goatshed”. From here
we survey the two Alagadi beaches,
the fifth most important nesting
beach for green turtles in the
Mediterranean, every night. The
Alagadi base also houses our day
workers for the north coast. From
here they drive every day (starting at
5am) to survey the beaches for turtle
activity the previous night. Our
western base is situated in the town
of Guzelyurt, in a house kindly lent to
us by Aktan Imamzade. This house
has been home to our west base for
three years now, and has massively
improved the lifestyle of the project
workers there. Volunteers get the
luxury of an indoor shower and beds,
so thank you very much Aktan!
This year we are also monitoring
the Karpaz peninsula. The Karpaz is
home to many busy nesting beaches,
including Ronas Bay, the third most
important nesting beach for green
turtles in the Mediterranean. The
Karpaz is hard work and the
volunteers based there spend long
days walking the beaches in the heat.
They are based at Yesilkoy, where
they are able to stay at the fire
station with the on-duty firemen.
Over the past week night work has become incredibly busy. On Saturday
night, with only six volunteers patrolling the two Alagadi beaches, we
had six nests, two of which were loggerheads. All the volunteers were so
pleased to see them, as we have had relatively few loggerheads nesting
here this year. As well as the nests we had a total of 23 activities! It
made for a hard night’s work for everyone but was especially rewarding
as we coped so well with such limited resources. Only two volunteers,
the usual number, were based on Alaghadi 2,
where there are usually fewer
activities than the main Alagadi
beach. They had the shock of their lives when on only the second walk
they came across three turtles
already on the beach. This was to set
the tone for the night; from 10pm
until dawn there was not a moment
without a turtle! The volunteers had
their work cut out for them, dashing
around finding more turtles and
tracks on almost every walk, as well
as trying to record the activities of
the turtles already traversing and
body pitting.
Amazingly the main Alagadi
beach was just as busy, and we were
beginning to wonder where all the
turtles had come from! It was
especially hard work for the
volunteers on this beach as one
person was stuck with a very curious
green turtle who decided not only to
walk around in circles but also to
take a trip to the beach bar car park
along the boardwalk! She spent a
hefty seven hours on the beach,
digging a whopping 11 body pits.
Towards the end of her foray she was
beginning to get very tired and
appeared to be stuck in the car park
unable to find her way out around
the wall. However, with a little
assistance from a volunteer she was
soon back on her way. Fortunately
our adventurer returned on Sunday
night, when after a little jolly up a
sand dune she fell into a body pit on
her way back to the water. She
dearly felt this was too good an
opportunity to be missed and decided
to use the half made nest herself. She
laid after having been on the beach
for a mere hour - although she very
nearly dug up a neighbouring nest in
the process! It is a relief to know that
even after a hard night the previous
night she was still able to return to
lay.
At present we are being
inundated with visitors and locals
alike coming to see the turtles
nesting. It is an amazing experience
and well worth taking a night out of
your schedule for. The guests visiting
the beach on Saturday night were
more than sufficiently rewarded for
their patience when they not only got
to see two green turtles nesting but
also a loggerhead. They were
fantastically enthusiastic and stayed
with the volunteers until dawn.
As I mentioned, there were two
loggerhead nests on Saturday night.
When the volunteers finally thought
their night was over and were
checking the beach for one final time
they came across the eager
loggerhead making use of the last
few minutes before sunrise to cover
her eggs. The second loggerhead nest
was much earlier in the night, and
was laid on the main Alagadi beach
in an area we call Bay One. This is
the first bay from our base, or the
furthest on your left when looking
out to sea from the beach bar.
Unfortunately the bay here isn’t very
wide and the loggerhead had laid too
close to the water. This meant that
with high tides the nest would get
washed over. If a nest gets washed
over just a couple of times the eggs
are hardy enough to withstand it.
However, if a nest gets washed over
continuously the oxygen is removed
and the eggs will not survive. We
were concerned that this would be
the case with the position of the nest
so we took the decision to transplant
it further up the beach away from the
high tide. To transplant the nest
successfully we needed to measure
the depth of the egg chamber to
recreate the same environment, and
dug the new egg chamber to the
same depth. We also moved a little of
the sand surrounding the eggs to
keep the nest as natural as possible.
When the eggs were removed there
were only 58, a surprisingly small
amount even for a loggerhead.
Loggerheads lay fewer eggs than
Greens with an average of 60-80,
compared to 80-100 for greens.
Remember, anybody who would
like to come and join us to watch
turtles nesting at night can pop into
our base at Alagadi to book in.
Visitors are always welcomed at the
Goatshed - after l0am is best, as we
don’t finish work until 5am! You will
get the opportunity to watch a short
video all about the turtles, buy some
turtle souvenirs, sponsor a turtle or
just have a chat with some of the
volunteers - we love to answer your
questions.
To find us, take the road
east from Girne and take the turning
left for Esentepe. Head into Alagadi
village, go past St Kathleen’s
restaurant and follow the road
around. When you hit the dirt, look to
your right for the white house with
the green turtle painted on the side.
Hope to see you all soon!
Diary by Emma Dennis
Reprinted from Cyprus Today |