Friday, August 20, 2010

Turtle rescue

On a routine incidentals walk lead by our fearless leader Jon and followed by 10 weeker Karen L and intern Sonja a surprising friend was discovered lurking in the vegetation of the coconut plantation near base. As it turned out we had stumbled upon a confused turtle that had lost her way while nesting the night before. Due to unforeseen events our group had to abandon the turtle mid-way through our rescue efforts. The turtle had knocked a wasp nest - and the wasps were not in the slightest impressed by that - you can imagine the rest.

No fear though, since this same turtle was spotted only a few hours afterwards by the jag cams group who was returning to base after a long and exciting walk. Field Staff Molly, who was leading the group spotted the turtle and 10 week intern Lauren ran to be by the turtles side for recuperation needs; while trying to hydrate her, Lauren mentioned that she had ‘ done this with a wombat but she had a Frisbee handy’. Luckily a nicely shaped tree bark did the job just fine. In the meantime intern Arno ran back and forth to base to get help from staff and other volunteers. When the team was assembled it consisted of staff members Andres, Ruth, Molly and Jon with the help of interns Arno, Lauren, Marcus and Sonja.


It took a little less than two hours for us to escort the turtle, who was affectionately named Suerte (luck in Spanish), back into the sea. With quick thinking and some improvisation skills we were able to slide two hammocks under her and slowly but surely lift her to the tide line where she swam back into the sea.


For the turtle it was definately a bad day with a very happy ending, thanks to the help of these guys!
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