Just after I left Mon Repos, the rains came in with high tides; the rain being the tail-end of Cyclone Olga. According to the local newspaper, the Courier-Mail:

"Wild weather has cost Queensland about 12,000 endangered baby loggerhead turtles. More than 100 clutches each containing about 125 eggs have been washed from nests at Mon Repos near Bundaberg after a pounding from high tides and big seas."

Hopefully the nests relocated to higher ground survived. More  than 400 nests were laid this season, a new high since the low of about 100 nests 10 years ago.

Photo of flatback hatchling at Mon Repos by Carla Pereira.

Sea turtles lumbering onto the sand to lay a clutch of eggs is just the beginning. To protect and monitor endangered loggerheads at Mon Repos, the eggs are often relocated to higher ground. And all nests are dug up after hatchlings have emerged and run for the ocean to see how many eggs succeeded in producing another generation.

When it is clear that a nest is at risk of being washed away by the tides, we carefully remove the eggs either as the turtle is laying them, when possible, or immediately after the female fills in the egg chamber and returns to the sea. The egg chamber is shaped like a lightbulb with a narrower opening leading to a wider compartment. Here the eggs incubate for about 8 weeks, plus or minus depending on sand temperature and other environmental factors.

The relocation hole is dug by hand in the same shape to a depth of about 60 centimeters to mimic the natural nest and in similar sand. If the nest was laid in the open, the relocated nest must be in open sand. If laid under a tree, then so should the new nest.

This must be done immediately and no later than within 2 hours of laying to avoid damaging the embryo inside. Rotating an egg can kill it, particularly in the first 3 weeks. Even within the first 2 hours, rotation in any direction must be avoided. So each egg is treated gently and mindfully as it is moved. The eggs are laid out in rows for counting before relocation. When no suitable location is available for some reason, the eggs are moved to a close-by hatchery on the beach to mature. (In photo, volunteer researcher Maelie gathers a loggerhead's eggs for relocation to a safer nest.)

Keeping the eggs in the same order as they were laid is also important. In nature, it is more likely that males will be produced by the eggs first laid and last laid, as they tend to be on the edges of the clutch and slightly cooler than those in the middle. More females are produced with warmer temperatures. In fact, at Mon Repos, most of the hatchlings produced are females due to the darker sands and warmer temperatures. On islands off the coast in the Great Barrier Reef, male hatchlings dominate.

An interesting ritual of sorts occurs on Mon Repos when visitors guided by Queensland Parks and Wildlife rangers are invited to help relocate the eggs. After counting, the bright white, round eggs are placed two-by-two from the original nest into the cupped hands of wide-eyed children and eager adults. They carry them in a short procession to the hands of a trained researcher who places the eggs gingerly into the relocated egg chamber. In silence and reverence, the 100 or so eggs are delivered into the safety of the dark sand and buried so they may grow into hatchlings.

Watch the new TV ad depicting the red rock and blue ocean that will be polluted and irriversibly harmed by Big Oil projects getting fast tracked by the government and corporations.

Oil and gas corporations want to build a huge industrial complex on the Kimberley coast near Broome - with reef blasting and dredging impacting on crucial habitat for dugong, turtles, and thousands of Humpback Whales who use the Kimberley coast as a nursery.

Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Murranji Photography, www.murranji.com.au

The number of South Pacific loggerhead nests on Mon Repos have reached more than 400  this season, a new high since the population was decimated by prawn trawls in the 1980s and 1990s. See the news story.  Historically, more than 3,500 females nested along the coast in and near Mon Repos known as the Woongarra Coast. The numbers dropped to 350 per season due to capture in prawn trawls. The use of TEDS that were finally mandated in 2000 has started to show results with the new high for nesting females.

However this population, the biggest in the Southern Pacific, has a long way to go. Researcher Colin Limpus is expecting another decline in about 10 to 15 years because the juveniles and sub-adults are being captured on high seas longlines  and are dying in great numbers from plastic ingestion – so there are very few “new recruits” to the population. Another big problem is increasing coastal development and lighting that is causing hatchlings to go off course and die in dunes, bushes and on streets. So these endangered sea turtles are far from stable.

A story just aired on local  TV but doesn’t  seem to be online yet, so here is a story from a week or so ago: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/31/2783263.htm

A quick summary of my turtle experience so far! My first night on the beach was amazing! I'm at  Mon Repos Sea Turtle Research Center in Queensland (near Bundaberg north of Brisbane) for a week.

The evening started out slow and then loggerhead sea turtles started coming up the beach, one, two, three. Fortunate for me they were low on experienced volunteers so all 5 or 6 of us newbies were suddenly thrown into action .  . . watching the sea turtle, collecting the eggs from her hatch once she moved off,  then digging them up, moving to a  safer nester further up above high tide line! I was just hoping to see one, not get to be part of the hands-on research! And with groups of tourists (20 to 30 people each) watching us “researchers” handle the eggs and give them each one or two eggs to carry up to the relocated nest.

We ended up staying on the beach until 1:30 am (an hour past our shift) because the turtles kept coming! We saw 3 and then the other shift took over and “processed” another 3 or 4. Of course this was really a low night – during the peak they  have 40 or 50! I seemed to do OK with the late night though I got tired at times.  But when there was action of course I perked right up!

Prodded by seven years of litigation by conservation organizations, the National Marine Fisheries Services announced today a new measure aimed at protecting Hawaii’s false killer whales from the lethal impacts of the longline fishery.

The agency published a notice in the Federal Register on January 19, 2010 that formally establishes a “take reduction team” for false killer whales. The team will consider ways to reduce harm to false killer whales caused by commercial tuna and swordfish longline operations. Longline vessels trail up to 60 miles of fishing line suspended in the water with floats and as many as 1,000 baited hooks. 

Approximately 60 whales were killed or injured in 2009 by the Hawaii longline fleet fishing for tuna and swordfish.

Creation of the team was the goal of the most recent litigation filed by Earthjustice on behalf of Turtle Island Restoration Network,  Hui Mälama i Koholä, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read more by clicking here.

TIRN/STRP Executive Director Todd Steiner and legal expert Andrea Treece from Center for Biological Diversity will join David Occhiuto for a conversation about the status of sea turtles a New York Public Radio Station WBAI. Learn more about the program here  or read below for information from the radio station's website.

Our oceans are home to seven species of sea turtles. These wide-ranging
and mysterious creatures are present throughout the world's tropical
and temperate waters. Six of the seven turtle species are listed as
threatened or endangered under the U. S. Endangered Species Act. The
systematic pillaging of our fragile ocean ecosystem by high seas
industrial longlining continues to inflict the most devastating impacts
on sea turtles and other marine life. What are the real impediments to
marine protection and restoration?  How can progressive social and
political forces work to ensure ocean eco-system restoration and real,
enduring protections?

Read more about the organizations at:http://seaturtles.org/index.php
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/index.html

For info on January 13th/nationwide action to show President Obama
unwavering support for sea turtles, salmon, and healthy oceans:
http://seaturtles.org/article.php?id=1509

Protect Pacific Sea Turtles - DENOUNCE THE U.S. DECISION TO INCREASE
SEA TURTLE DEATHS IN HAWAII SWORDFISH FISHERY:

Public comments needed on proposed rule to protect 70,000 Square Miles
of habitat for Endangered Leatherback Sea Turtles:

Suit Filed to Stop Hawaii Longline Fishery From Tripling Sea Turtle
Kill

Background information:

The leatherback sea turtle has become a harbinger for the overall
health of the oceans and the survival of human society.  Having
survived dinosaurs and countless other species over the past 100
million years, the Pacific leatherback’s nesting population has
declined by 95 percent since 1980, primarily as a result of industrial
longline "fishing" (which occurs close to the surface where turtles
spend most of their time), pollution, poaching of eggs, and the destruction of habitat by unchecked development. As a result, the near extinction of the Pacific leatherback can be seen as an exemplary case study of the drastic threats to our ocean
environment, marine species and our own future.

Many of the island nations of the Western and Central Pacific have
developed unique cultures interwoven with the ocean, fish and other
living creatures that are crucial to their self-awareness of their
place in the world, their origins, spirituality and unique
socio-economic subsistence-based ways of life.  The rapid depletion of
not only large predatory fish but also associated species, such as sea
turtles and cetaceans by industrial longlining threaten the very
existence of their ways of life.

The Pacific Ocean has become a silent minefield of millions of hooks
threaded along nearly invisible monofilament lines stretching far into
the horizon. Each day, about 12,000 victims, including whales,
dolphins, seabirds, billfish, sea turtles and sharks, are pointlessly
injured and killed by these ocean mines.  Longline fishing vessels
cruise the surface for 25 to 100 kilometers spooling mainlines, floats,
branchlines and hooks into the water. Between 500 and 3,000 baited
hooks hang from the mainlines. Radio transmitters, light sticks,
ribbons and other implements also may be added. All of this gear drifts
overnight or all day in the ocean and is then hauled in along with
everything that has been hooked or entangled on the lines. Although
longlines are used to target a number of different fish species, they
are most lucratively used to catch tuna, swordfish and shark. Because
longlining has a low degree of selectivity, a significant and growing
part of the catch of a targeted longline fishery is “bycatch” that is
either thrown back, finned, or commercialized which puts additional
pressures on already depleted fisheries.

Sea turtles are one of the non-target species most vulnerable to
longlines. Some sea turtle species (such as loggerheads, olive ridleys
and greens) swallow the longline bait and swallow the hook, or are caught
in the mouth.  Hooked or entangled, often held underwater by longline
gear - unable to reach the surface to breathe - they drown.  Those that
are hauled up before drowning, if they are not killed or kept for meat,
may be released with serious trauma and injuries making them vulnerable
to being caught again later or dying from their wounds. The use of
longlines in the US remained insignificant until a combination of
factors — new permitting for swordfishing, technological advances in
engine power and refrigeration, expansion of subsidies, credit and
financing, and a ban on high seas driftnets longer than 2.5 kilometers
— led many industrial vessels to switch over to longlining...
(excerpts from: 'Striplining the Pacific: The Case for a United Nations
Moratorium on High Seas Industrial Longline Fishing' published in 2005
by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project ). To download STRP's report
'Striplining the Pacific':
http://www.seaturtles.org/article.php?id=769

Sea Turtles in Copenhagen?

With no action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, could out-of-control sea level rise and warmer waters submerge the famous mermaid in Copenhagen and allow sea turtles to summer in Denmark? Such a scenario may not be that far-fetched.
The new report Boiling Point by Turtle Island Restoration Network (www.seaturtles.org) points out that climate change due to global warming is a triple whammy for declining sea turtles. Climate change is already taking a toll on the leatherback sea turtle in Costa Rica due to hot sands and submerged beaches. And in places like remote Northwestern Australia – close to the Timor oil spill, -- Chevron and other oil companies are destroying flatback nesting beaches and building new fossil fuel projects that will add millions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and oceans.
1. Rises in ocean levels mean that sandy beaches where sea turtles lay their nests are getting submerged under waves and water. This prevents adult sea turtles from returning to the beaches where they hatched to repeat their ancient nesting ritual.
2. Hotter sand temperatures result in mostly female sea turtle hatchlings. Without enough males, the species cannot survive. And if the nest sand is much too hot, no eggs will hatch at all.
3. Changes to ocean currents, temperature and acidification are likely to throw sea turtles far off normal migrations and alter food availability and abundance.
These negative impacts are magnified by the continued threats to sea turtles and human communities from industrial longline and trawl fishing, coastal development, and unsustainable direct harvest.

Yesterday, the US government announced it will loosen rules on the Hawaii Longline swordfish fishery, allowing more fishing effort and increasing the annual allowable number of loggerhead sea turtles that can be injured and killed by this fishery (for more info click here).  

This action is a setback for the controls we have successfully fought for over the years that resulted in a ~ 4-year closure, followed by an eventual opening that limited fishing effort.  Some changes we have fought for that will stay in place include a fishing closure for the year when the number of turtle interactions reach the ‘allowable’ cap, and gear changes that have reduced the seriousness of injuries that occurs from the ‘deep swallowing’ of hooks.

It appears the fishing industry is still calling the shots when it comes to protecting oceans and apparently human health too, since the target species, swordfish, is so highly tainted with high levels of mercury, the EPA has deemed it too dangerous for pregnant women, children or even women planning to become pregnant in the future to eat.

While lobbying by the fishing industry to loosen the rules started under the previous Bush Administration, we are extremely disappointed that the Obama administration has let these new rules go into effect.

We learned to expect these types of environmentally irresponsible decisions from the Bush Administration, but are we certainly ‘hoped’ for something better from the Obama administration.

Rest assured, we are not quietly accepting this attack on endangered sea turtles.  Stay tuned for our next steps, which will be announced next week.

The East Bay Express (Berkeley, CA) just published an excellent review of campaigns targeting California-based Chevron corporation. See the article.

What's missing from the piece and the activists agenda are the eco-atrocities that Chevron is conducting in Northwestern Australia. However, it is not too late to stop most of the fossil fuel projects that are threatening the environment and community of the Kimberley and neighboring regions. STRP is joining with Australian groups who are leading the charge to stop the destruction of sea turtle nesting beaches and whale calving areas. Read more

Olive ridley sea turtle that washed up cold-stunned at Stinson Beach is treated at the Marine Mammal Center. (photo credit: Marine Mammal Center)

A rare and endangered olive ridley sea turtle, normally found along Mexican shores and southward, washed up on SeaDrift Beach in Stinson Beach, Marin County on Wednesday afternoon, November 25, 2009.

This is definitely a rare find, one of only three live olive ridley turtles I know of reported in the scientific literature since 2001 along the Central California coast.

The sub-adult female turtle weighed approximately 60 lbs and its carapace (top shell) measured about two feet.  It was lethargic and cold-stunned when located and was initially transported to the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands where it was stabilized with fluids, vitamins, and precautionary antibiotics, and then onto SeaWorld in San Diego for further rehabilitation, where it currently remains in guarded condition. The turtle appeared malnourished and had algae, barnacles, crabs and shrimp attached, suggesting it had been floating for some time.

Read more here

Photograph: Annabelle Sandes/Kimberley Whale Watching/WWF

 Satellite images show a 25,000 square kilometre slick spreading across the surface of the ocean and spilling into Indonesian waters, threatening the marine reserves of Ashmore and Cartier reefs.

The Kemp's ridley nesting season on Texas beaches and Mexico's beaches has concluded. In a nutshell, the exciting news from Mexico is that 21,144 nests were found with one million hatchlings released into the Gulf of Mexico. You can get more information at http:///www.seaturtle.org/PDF'BurchfieldPM_2009_ReportontheMexicoUnitedStatesofAmer.pdf

It is important to remember that each female Kemp's ridley usually nests twice during the season and some nest three times which complicates the math on just how many ridley females are nesting each year. In addition, biologists vary on just how many of the one million hatchlings will survive to become adults. The numbers one of a thousand seem to be accepted, but with one million hatchlings making it to the surf, we can look for increasing numbers in the future.

The staff and all those who work at the Mexican beach nesting sites are to be congratulated for another year of hard work.

 From activists in the Kimberly of Northwest Australia

Save Our Kimberley Bulletin

FIRST ATTEMPT TO PLUG OIL LEAK FAILS - ABC News

"The company responsible for an oil leak off the north-west coast of Australia says the first attempt to plug the leak with mud and stop the flow of oil has been unsuccessful.

It has been more than six weeks since oil first started leaking from the West Atlas oil rig.

Operator PTTEP Australasia has been trying to stop the leak by drilling a relief well for the past three weeks."

For more see http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/06/2706299.htm?site=local

PRESS RELEASE

OIL SPILL "LIKE A SCENE FROM A DISASTER MOVIE"
- Press Release

"Environs Kimberley Director Martin Pritchard flew over the West Atlas oil spill over the weekend. The flight from Broome headed to the oil spill before heading off 30km due east and turning around to refuel at Truscott.

“Seeing it first hand was a real shock, it was like something from a disaster movie. The rig was billowing smoke and there was a sheen of oil from horizon to horizon. We followed the
oil for 30km due east and all you could see from the cockpit was oil covering the sea, when we turned around the slick was heading in an easterly and northerly direction towards
Indonesia” Mr Pritchard said.

“What we realized when we got to the rig was that the slick appeared to be heading in a southerly direction which is a change to the north-easterly direction of the last three weeks.

This is a real worry if it’s now heading for the Kimberley coast” said Mr Pritchard.

“We’re very concerned that the Federal government is scaling back its efforts particularly if the oil slick is now heading towards the Kimberley.

“We are particularly concerned because from what we saw there is still a massive amount of oil coming from the well and we are not at all confident in the Federal Minister for Resources Martin Ferguson’s assessment that less oil is coming out. The government have admitted they
don’t know what the flow rate is so how can they know less oil is coming out? The photos we have show a huge slick coming from the well” said Mr Pritchard.

The Kimberley coast is one of the world’s most intact large tropical marine ecosystems with a coral reef province of global significance. The seas in the area are known as a ‘marine superhighway’ because of the amount of dolphins, whales, turtles, seabirds and fish found there.

Environs Kimberley is calling for marine sanctuaries to protect Kimberley marine areas from threats posed by the oil and gas industry."

http://www.environskimberley.org.au/press/09_sep14_MR_Oil_spill_scene_from_disaster_movie.pdf

YURI, our male Pacific green (black) tagged with a satellite transmitter at Cocos Island last month appears to have left the relative safety of Cocos Island and is 179 km east of the Island.

NONIE, our female Pacific green (black) tagged with a satellite transmitter at Cocos Island moved 75 km east, but now seems to be headed back to Cocos.

View their daily tracks by clicking HERE and then clicking on the individual turtle’s name (http://www.seaturtles.org/article.php?id=1423)

And if you haven’t taken action to protect Costa Rica’s most important leatherback nesting site, click here NOW and send an email action alert!
(http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1723/t/6251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2089)

The oil spilling from a damaged rig in the Timor Sea above Australia's Top End is threatening sea turtles and whales. The Kimberly region in the northwest corner of the country is several hundred kilometers south of the spill where Australian flatbacks, hawksbills, and greens nest.

An Australian TV program recently highlighted the Kimberly region and its humpback whales, which have returned from near-extinction.  It is a stunning piece that gives you a short but memorable overview of the whales, the people, the land and the nearby oil spill.

Recently, olive ridley hatchlings were found for the first time in Western Australia -- adding another sea turtle species that relies on this remote and wild coastal region. According to the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance , "the Bardi-Jawi Rangers had an extraordinary find recently--Olive Ridley hatchlings in Western Australia!

What makes this extraordinary is that WA is not a part the recognised range of Olive Ridleys as the species has never before been recorded in the west.

Further adding to the story, the hatchlings were reported to the Rangers by one of the Awesome Foursome Olympic rowers on a beach that had been closed by Traditional Owners to four wheel drive traffic to protect turtle nests."

Public Comment from the Ocean Task Force Hearing in San Francisco:

I am asking that the Obama administration give top priority in its Ocean policy to research and assist sea turtles, whose populations are decreasing at this alarming and unacceptable rate and whose ultimate peril or survival is effected by the same threats and protections that impact all the creatures of our seas.

Having survived cataclysmic changes to the earth for a continuum of 100 million years, the sea turtle is to me, the most articulate ambassador of the sea, and we will benefit most profoundly by giving her voice. We are offered a rare and perhaps fleeting opportunity to save thousands of species by focusing on one creature: the sea turtle.

-By studying the depletion of sea turtle populations, we will understand in greater depth and breadth, why our oceans are dying and how we can help them to recover.

Why study the sea turtle? Sea turtles shared the planet with dinosaurs, outliving climatic and other changes to the sea and earth that few species ever have. Its remarkable adaptability and resilience makes the sea turtle the ideal subject to study the foundational issues that threaten our oceans as well as the baseline legislation required to guarantee the barest survival of our seas.  

What else makes the sea turtle the ideal subject of study?

1) First, they are among the easiest sea creatures to tag and monitor, and several committed organizations already have projects are underway, but are in need of assistance to continue and expand these studies.
2) Second, the sea turtle is migratory, and following their routes helps us to identify areas of the oceans that are most gravely effected by various threats and which are most in need of protection.
3) Third, the sea turtle is intimately effected by the major issues threatening our all sea creatures—over-fishing and destructive fishing policies and practices; biological, chemical, and consumer-related pollution; and over-development of coastal regions. By studying the impact of these and other threats to sea turtle populations in particular, we learn with the greatest possible ease and the least possible expense, how to protect and recover the ecosystems of oceans in general.

I ask respectfully and with urgency that you please make the study and rescue of sea turtles a very top priority in this administration’s ocean policy.  Thank you for your kind attention and consideration.

Jennifer Sauer
Mill Valley, CA

The Cocos Expedition was a great success with 26 sea turtles (25 Pacific green "black" turtles  and one hawksbill turtle) tagged with permanent flipper tags, nine of those tagged with acoustical tags and four with satellite transmitters.  Additionally six hammerhead sharks were tagged.

You can watch the movements of the satellite tagged turtles by clicking here and you can read the full expedition report here.

Three trips are planned for 2010, two of which are open to STRP members.  To learn more click here.

Chevron's Gorgon project in Northwestern Australia south of Port Hedland is a disaster for sea turtles which nest on Barrow Island. The project was approved by the Australian government despite opposition from environmental groups and it's own environmental advisors. Read the article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Since Chevron has taken over the existing oil drilling rigs on Barrow Island, environmental protection has gone downhill, according to people who have worked there. Australian flatback sea turtles nest on the remote island and forage and breed in the surrounding waters. This rare sea turtle nests only in Australia and is protected by the government. Yet that has not stopped the Western Australia government's new premiere Colin Barrett, a conservative, from giving it the green light.

The project is also dependent on very questionable carbon sequestration technology, where the excess CO2 from natural gas production will be pumped under the island instead of released into the atmosphere. This approach has never been proven to be safe or environmentally sound.

 Up the coast in the Kimberly, fossil fuel giants want to build even more dirty plants for natural gas processing that would destroy a relatively intact eco-system. Chevron and the other oil barons need to pull back. See more at www.seaturtles.org and http://www.savethekimberley.com/

Day IV

More diving, more turtles!  We are now up to eight green turtles captured from four different dives sites around the island, though most are from Manuelita Garden, a protected shallow coral reef area.  We have replaced our last “night dive with a 4th afternoon dive in Manuelita Garden, where we find turtles resting at 40-60 feet along the coral/sand margins.  They appear curious of us and it is easy to capture them. The hard part of course is getting them (and ourselves) to the surface safely. We have developed a two-person method where one person grabs the turtle and directs him upward and a second person grabs the first diver, deflates his/her BC (buoyancy compensator) and controls ascent time and speed to the surface, where the turtle is passed up to someone in the skiff.  

Once aboard the turtles are measured, weighed and tagged with permanent flipper tags and a small tissue sample is taken for genetic analysis.  Some turtles also get one of the four satellite tags and/or nine acoustical tags we have with us.  Satellite tagging involves an additional step of cleaning and drying the surface of the plastron (top shell) and gluing the tag onto the turtle with special epoxy.  Acoustical tags are attached by drilling tiny holes at the margin of the carapace, and fastening the tag with zip ties.  With this latest batch of turtles, we have three turtles outfitted with satellite transmitters and six with acoustical tags.  We are saving our last satellite tag for a hawksbill turtle if we are lucky enough to find one!