Turtle Reproductive Success

Several days this week I have worked with Tammy the turtle tech digging up turtle nests in which hatching is complete. Tammy walks the beach in the morning looking for the small depression and tracks from the hatchlings of a nest that has hatched during the night. Then in the afternoon each of these nests is carefully dug. Most of the digging is with hands and live hatchlings are sometimes found stuck under a rock or a piece of coral. The live ones are put into an ice chest for release in the evening. When the egg chamber is found all of the eggs hatched and unhatched are lifted out of the chamber. The eggs are a little larger than a ping pong ball and leathery, not hard like a chicken egg. All of the eggs that are removed are categorized into hatched or still containing an embryo. The ones with embryo are opened and the developmental stage of the egg is noted. My job has been some digging, categorizing the eggs and filling out the data sheet. Yesterday afternoon we did 6 nests and found nearly 100 live hatchlings which we released last night after dark.It is hot, stinky work but watching the hatchlings swim away from the beach last night made it all worthwhile.