Have no fear! The blog is still here!

Hello trusty turtle followers!

Apologies for the bout of quietness, what a busy June and July it has been indeed! Where to start? What are we doing? How are all the Islands fairing and how are we set compared to previous years? Well let us have a look shall we!

Firstly I would like to welcome my trusty partner in crime Jen Swiggs back to the team. Jen interned with us last year and we didn’t seem to put her off so she has come to join us for another season of fun in the sun! Our full team this season also includes Jack Boyle and Bryce Gunning all of whom have in some form or another worked with us previously on the DoE’s turtle program. It’s awesome to have them back and finally the turtle intern team is complete! This season is on target to being very busy indeed! But what has been going on in the life of the turtle interns, as it has been a while since my last turtle confession!

Whoop whoop this is the sound of the police!
Two weeks ago I was woken at 4:30am by our DoE chief enforcement officer Mark Orr who informed me that there was a poaching in progress on a female turtle that was attempting to lay her nest on one of our monitored beaches. A witness had been walking the beach with his dogs when he spooked several poaches who had managed to flip the female on her back and were attempting to take her off the beach. Thankfully the presence of the dogs detoured the poachers and the police and Mark were called. Upon arrival the turtle was in good health. She weighed an estimated 400lb and measured 110cm in shell and with no identification tags she became our first turtle to be tagged in 2015. Once tagged it took 4 of us to carry her past the ironshore which she had become trapped behind to a clear walkway down to the ocean. Although she still preferred to clamber back across she did safely re-enter the water by 7am and lives to nest another day!

What’s that coming over the hill is it a monster?
It’s the second concerned citizen to call the turtle hotline this season with an enquiry on what to do when they have a ‘Giant’ turtle walking across the road or found on a building site. Said giant turtle ended up to be a 9 inch hickatee freshwater turtle which is presumed native to the Island. There is also a second freshwater turtle found here, the red-slider. Both of these species are commonly seen basking on rocks, mangrove roots, submerged tree stumps and occasionally venturing across roads and properties. Stay tuned for a following blog on how to identifying these species.



Although one take home message before calling the turtle hotline… Does the turtle have feet (with little claws) or flippers? If flippers, please call the DoE sea turtle hotline! However, if you are uncertain or have any further questions please do call the hotline on 938-NEST (938-6378).

High ho! High Ho! It’s off to work we go! With a logger over here, and a green over there! High ho! High ho!
So on to the main event, the part of the blog that you have all been waiting for the current nesting numbers! We have been very busy across Grand Cayman (GCM) and Little Cayman (LC), with 130 nests being recorded in GCM, and 92 in LC. These nesting numbers are approximately 30% higher than 2014 and are only a few nests below 2013, which was our busiest season on record. So currently nesting numbers are very promising. On the other hand, Cayman Brac (CB) has not seen as many nests compared to previous years with only 9 nests being laid compared to 28 found in 2014. This however, at the current time in the season is not overly worrying: if you can recall from our previous blogs, each year nesting numbers will fluctuate naturally as individuals will be nesting on a 2-3 year nesting interval.

So we hope that the numbers will continue to rise for all islands and with the beginning of the Darwin Project night time tagging program looming ahead of us, we should be able to update you with any new turtles being tagged. Let us see how many returnees we get this year having started our tagging program in 2013. As previously mentioned we have already tagged our first turtle for 2015 but we have also had our first returned turtle with tags. She was our 8th turtle found nesting in 2013 in a similar location and we hope to see her nesting many more times this summer.

So to round this all off for now, this season looks to be on target for being a very busy one! We still have plenty of opportunities for you to get involved this season as we hope to dedicate at least one day a week to public education be it through talks, nest excavations and hatchling releases. So if you are interested in seeing any of these then please do get in contact with us either through email: doeturtlemonitoring@gmail.com or doe@gov.ky or call us on the turtle hotline: 938 (NEST) (938-6378).

Until next time my friends!

Luc :)

Excuse me! Can I see some ID?

Hello trusty turtle folks!

Firstly HAPPY WORLD TURTLE DAY!!!!! Woop woop! 

Secondly lets take a quick look at our current status of events!

We are in mid-May and the season is well underway for each of the Cayman Islands, with loggerhead turtles nesting across all three islands. With each week passing more individuals are coming ashore to lay their eggs. Currently 12 nests have been identified on Grand Cayman, 4 on Little Cayman, and 4 on Cayman Brac, but with each week more nests are being found. This shows for a very promising season indeed, especially as this time last year saw only 6 nests on Grand Cayman.

How do you find these activities I hear you say and how do you I.D. the species? Well let’s sort out those queries for you… maybe once you have this knowledge you may be interested in volunteering with your local turtle team ;)!

The first step in successfully monitoring the beaches for turtle activities is to have a turtley awesomely dedicated group of volunteers that give up their free time to walk sections of beaches looking for any turtle activity, which they report to a DoE coordinator. Each year we walk a total of 1,400 miles of beach across all three islands, looking for any indications of turtle activity. These include distinct tracks and any disturbed areas of sand indicating that eggs were laid.

If you recall we have 3 species of turtles nesting in the Cayman Islands: green, loggerhead and hawksbill turtles. Each has very a very distinct set of tracks which volunteers can use to identify species. Let’s take a look:

The green turtle (Pic 1), coming in at up to 5ft in length and weighing up to 700lb , crawls on to the beach leaving a very large symmetrical track pattern, where both front flippers are moved in sync. The tracks are typically deep, and can still be identified days after the initial emergence. The loggerhead (Pic 2) comes in at 3ft and weighs up to 250lb, and crawls onto the beach leaving an asymmetrical track pattern where their front flippers move alternatively, like swimming front crawl style. And finally the hawksbill (Pic 3) comes in at 3ft in length and weighs up to 150lb. Hawksbills crawl in an asymmetrical manner identical to the loggerhead, but often have a tell-tale sign: a distinct tail track on both the up and down track.

Once the turtle track has been identified, we will then look to see if there is any sand disturbance other than the track. Below are two examples: a green turtle nest (Pic 4) and a loggerhead nests (Pic 5). Green turtles take a lot of time digging their nests  (over 2 hours), dig a deep pit with a very distinct sharp edge, and move a large amount of sand in what is known as the camouflaging cover up, where the exact location of the eggs is disguised. Loggerheads (Pic 5) have a more scrappy nesting style. You can however still see a sharp edge to the body pit and a mound of sand, but it is in no way as defined as in a green turtle nest. Hawksbill nests are very similar to loggerhead nests however one other indicator is the egg size (Pic 6). On the right is a loggerhead egg that is smaller than a green egg, but as you can see bigger than the hawksbill egg on the left.

The species of turtle can also often be confirmed after hatching, when we excavate nests to determine fertility and to collect genetic samples for our Darwin Initiative research (see the previous blog post).  

With the help of our volunteers, the DoE's daytime nesting beach monitoring programme has been running since 1998 and has allowed us to monitor population trends for our nesting turtles. We're very excited that with support from the Darwin Initiative we have been able to add a night time monitoring programme to tag our nesting green turtles - stay tuned for more information when our night monitoring begins in June!

When you are walking the beach, even if you are unsure of whether or not a possible track is turtle related, we encourage you to call in the site. DoE staff and interns will be able to check the site and determine if it is a true turtle activity. If you are interested in turtle walking with us or have suspected turtle activity on your beach in the Cayman Islands or would like further information on anything turtle related, then please do get in contact. Phone 938-NEST (938-6378) or doe@gov.ky

Until next time folks! Happy turtle searching!

Luc J  

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 [B1]average is more like 3-4 ft and 300 lbs? 

2015 turtle season kicks off to a flying start!

Hello trusty turtle followers!

We have had a little break while our turtle season has been quiet but the time is upon us once more, with the first nests of the season recorded! These nests have broken the records for the earliest nests recorded in the Cayman Islands with the first being laid on the 8^th of April! Is this record breaking streak going to continue throughout the season I wonder? With our biggest recorded turtle nesting season being in 2013 with over 300 nests across the Cayman Islands this may very well be the case! Interns and volunteers get some rest now I feel my turtle senses tingling!

So it’s time to get your walking flip flops, check, sunscreen slapped on, check, and hats at the ready, check, as we begin the first morning walks of the season this week. But did you know that we are also continuing for the second year in a row our night time tagging program? No? Well let’s see about sorting that one out!

 In 2014 the DoE was awarded a Darwin Plus grant funded by the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affaires (DEFRA) to investigate “Socioeconomic aspects of turtle conservation in the Cayman Islands”. In a nutshell the project is: a) looking at the contribution of the Turtle Farm to the islands’ wild population, b) looking at the cultural importance and prevalence of turtle meat consumption across all three islands, c) looking at illegal take and how this may be influenced by supply and demand, d) looking at management targets to reduce illegal take.

So how is in progress so far?

With the Darwin grant the DoE was able to start a comprehensive night time tagging program of nesting females. By patrolling beaches at night, DoE tagged 21 nesting females in 2014. If you remember back to when we looked at the biology of the sea turtles, females on average come back to nest every two to three years. As 2013 was a record season we expect to have a very busy season ahead of us in 2015. Very exciting times indeed!

Over the years, the turtle farm has released over 30,000 individuals into the wild. In order to determine population size and identify farm released turtles nesting in the wild, nesting individuals are tagged with 2 numbered flipper tags in their fore flippers and a microchip in the shoulder. A proportion of farm released individuals were also released with a living tag which can be used to identify which year the hatchlings were released: this is also documented as well as a small genetic sample taken. The samples currently collected are in the first stages of their genetic analysis now, and with the green nesting season predicted to start in early June it’s time for DoE interns, staff and volunteers to catch up on sleep now!

In 2014 a socioeconomic survey took place across all three islands with 991 interviews completed. These included households, high school students, restaurants and tourists. The results of the interviews will be used to see how culturally important turtle meat is, as well as the influence of price, availability and the preference for farmed or wild meat is to the Cayman Islands.

So you see we are not just doing morning walks to identify where the turtles are nesting but also a lot more behind the scenes. If you are interested in getting involved with more turtle related volunteering then please do get in contact with us. Details to follow. I would also like to add a side note that we are hoping to dedicate our Wednesdays to promote more public awareness, be this through educational talks, public excavations and in the evenings public hatchling releases. So if you know of any group or school that may be interested in either of these things then please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.

As always if you would like more information on what we do or you have a turtle related report then please get in contact with us. Send us an email on doe@gov.ky or call us on our turtle hotline 938-NEST(6378).

Bring on 2015! We are ready… are you?!

Luc J 

Cut the glow to let turtles go!

“Blinded by the light, Revved up like a deuce, Another runner in the night” (Bruce Springsteen 1973 a true cheesy classic!) Ever experienced that feeling when you suddenly go from a dark room into a blinding bright light room…? It blinds and disorientates you doesn't it! It’s the same for hatchlings as they make their way from the darkness of their nest onto the blazingly lit beach from properties. Once they have struggled to survive through incubation, hatching and emerging, these poor little guys become disorientated by the light. Heading away from their natural cues of the stars and moon light reflecting off the water, up into beach front properties or worse onto the main roads. Eventually if not found in time they will become dehydrated and die, if a vehicle or animal doesn’t get to them first. 

However, it is not only the hatchlings that are impacted, but the nesting females are also having a hard time with increased light spillage onto the beaches. Each year egg-bearing females are abandoning the urge to nest on lighted beaches. Some may even not even emerge from the water. If they do, some females can become disorientated and like the hatchling mis-orientate [A2] into properties where they become susceptible to illegal take and can become entrapped in garden vegetation or swimming pools.

So what can you do to mitigate these threats? Stick with me and we can see what we can do!

Firstly let’s check out the general principles of light pollution:

Wavelength: Go back to your GCSE or O-Level physic years looking through a prism and remember how the light is split into the spectrum. Turtles are most attracted to short wavelengths (violet/blue) of light probably due to the marine environment filtering out the long wavelengths. Turtles are least attracted to longer wavelengths (yellow/orange – red) at the other end of the spectrum. Moonlight falls under the short (violet/blue) wavelength and this became the environmental guidance cue for adults and hatchlings to find their way back to the ocean. White light is composed of many different wavelengths, and has a greater violet/blue wavelength, thus attracts the turtles away from the dull glow from the moon and stars reflecting on the water and toward artificial lights on land. 

Intensity: Alongside wavelength the intensity of the light plays an important role in the turtle’s responses to light. Even Low intensities of short wavelengths cause an orientation response in hatchlings, whereas much higher intensities of long wavelength lights are required to create a similar response. 

Glow: The reflection of the light from clouds, surrounding buildings and vegetation can also be a disruption to turtles. Remember it is not only direct light from a light source that attracts turtles, but indirect light can also attract their attention. For example, when the moon is largely covered by cloud the surrounding glow from the will become the brightest attraction and mis-orientate the hatchlings. 

Direction and Elevation: Directivity is the difference in the brightness of one direction over another. For hatchlings as this light field increase[A6] , the brightest direction becomes more pronounced causing the hatchling to orientate towards the bright light. Bright, low [A7] short wavelength sources can be very disruptive. If the light source is close to the ground it becomes brighter due to the amount of glow reflection and overwhelms the light reflecting off the water’s surface again causing mis-orientation of hatchlings. This is also true by lights mounted on walls where the light is reflected of the surrounding surfaces.

Solution: Turtle Friendly lighting (Cue fan fair!) is a variety of lighting options that are designed to fully meet the lighting needs for beach front properties without impacting turtles. It can be very cost effective and flexible. For example, planting vegetation in front of lights, using long wavelength (amber/red) light bulbs, lowering and shading lights, replacing selected lights with turtle friendly fixtures, and most simply splitting lights onto separate switches so specific problematic lights can be turned off. Not only can these methods benefit the turtles but turtle friendly lighting can also be very beneficial to your wallet! The majority of bulbs are LED and the fixtures are universal so bulbs can be replaced with normal lights out of season, and in places like Florida, they have seen a 70% reduction in energy costs… Tempted much?!

So in summary:

1)      Keep it OFF – Keep lights off the beach and keep them off when they are not needed especially around turtle nesting and hatching season

2)      Keep it LOW – Mount fixtures as low as possible to minimise light trespass, and use the lowest amount of light needed for the task

3)      Keep it SHIELDED – Fully shield the light so bulbs and glowing lenses are not visible from the beach and avoid light escaping upwards and outwards

4)      Keep it LONG – Use long wavelength light sources (ambers and reds) in the appropriate light fixtures

So that’s some food for thought! The next time you find yourself on a beach at night just take a look around and think where would an emerging hatchling go? We decide which way they travel, so let’s make the right choice for them!

Until the next time you lovely people

Luc J

Sending out an S.O.S to the world!

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, it is not the most intelligent that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change”

-Charles Darwin

None can be more accurate when it comes to the survival of marine turtles. From the moment the eggs are laid the battle for survival begins, but what, or rather who, is their main enemy? Dun dun daaaaaa! Not to be melodramatic but yes we do play a major role  in the survival of these species.

Let us just recap on the last blog about the biology of sea turtles. We learnt that they are widely dispersed migratory organisms that cover large distances between their foraging grounds and their natal nesting beaches. Because turtles cross geographical, political  and cultural boundaries, they are hard to monitor especially when different countries may or may not have national laws to protect them. There are 5 major anthropogenic threats that have contributed to declining marine turtle populations: fisheries impacts, direct take, coastal development, climate change and predation. So let us take a closer look.

Fisheries impacts

Fishing activities are thought to be the greatest cause of marine turtle decline. Trawls, longlines, driftnets, gillnets, pots, traps and discarded fishing line all play a role in incidental capture or entanglement. It is estimated that each year 250,000 loggerhead turtles are caught globally in longline fishery operations and 80% of live turtles released still have hooks inside their months, often leading to delayed mortality. Loss of fishing gear such as nets can also cause ghost fishing (entanglement of wildlife in lost fishing gear). Up to 30km of net can be lost from a single deep drift fishing fleet, resulting in disastrous consequences. Here in the Cayman Islands our main fishing impact is entanglement in discarded fishing line or fish hook injuries (http://www.cayman27.com.ky/2014/10/29/drowned-turtle-found-tangled-in-fishing-line-near-fish-pot) and when they leave Caymanian waters our turtles are also exposed to all the pressures of global large scale industrialised fisheries.

Direct take

The second biggest threat is through direct taking and harvesting of adults, juveniles and eggs, which has been going on for centuries, as a food resource as well as for international trade in turtle products such as shells. Between 1688 and 1730, based on fishery records, the estimated population size of green turtles in the Caribbean was 6.5 million. However, by the early 1800s turtle fishermen had exhausted the local nesting population in the Cayman Islands and were sailing elsewhere to catch turtles. By 1900 it was believed that the Cayman Islands local reproductive population had become extinct, but current day monitoring programmes with the DoE have shown that there is a small glimmer of hope as the population numbers very VERY slowly start to recover – only time will tell!

It’s not just adults and juveniles that are taken for food: eggs are also taken as an aphrodisiac and  up to 20-30% of all nests in some parts of the world are completely poached. In some regions of Costa Rica where the famous arribadas of Olive Ridleys occur every year, ‘nesters’ dig up freshly lain eggs and sell them on the black market.

In the Cayman Islands, illegal take continues to be one of the most serious threats to our nesting population. Typically several turtles are taken each year. This represents a tremendous loss to the nesting population, which is still critically small.

Coastal development

As development on beaches continues to grow, light pollution and loss of habitat availability for nesting turtles is becoming more and more apparent. Light pollution from beachfront properties has detrimental effects on both the nesting females and the survival of their offspring. Females coming onto the shore to lay their eggs can be easily deterred from nesting or can become disorientated and can fall into swimming pools or become entangled in beach furniture or other obstacles. But the impact of lights on the hatchlings is even greater. Hatchlings will emerge from their nests at night, and are drawn toward the reflection of the stars and moon reflecting off the water’s surface which creates the lightest point in the natural environment. However with continued development hatchlings are being drawn away from the water toward the lights on properties at the back of the beach. A single light can cause hundreds of hatchlings to misorientate into roads and gardens leading to dehydration in the morning sun and increasing their chance of being killed by predators or vehicles.  

Climate change (CC)

CC has huge effects on many aspects of turtle ecology, from altering the sex of the hatchlings to potentially altering the distributions of adults and hatchlings. To recap last week’s blog: we learnt that the sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature of incubation in the middle third incubation period. An increase or decrease in the temperatures can lead to sex biased clutches, decreasing the chance of a female finding a mate as only females are being produced.  Additionally this increase in atmospheric and sea temperature can lead to an alteration in the world’s ocean currents. On the positive side, there is the potential for new foraging habitats and nesting areas to be created. However, ‘he who giveth can taketh away’, as current foraging and nesting sites can become destroyed through coastal flooding and intolerable temperatures for turtles. Therefore it is important that some nesting beaches be left undeveloped so that they can naturally migrate inland as the sea level rises.

Predation

At all stages of the marine turtle life cycle predation remains a constant threat. Feral animals (such as cats, dogs and pigs) can smell out a developing nest, while crabs, birds, sharks and other large predatory fish eat the hatchlings as they make their way down the beach and out to sea. As juveniles and adults their main predators are sharks and humans. If large numbers of nests are destroyed, there is no recruitment to the population and the population is diminished.

So just be thankful you are not a marine turtle! Here are but a few things that we can do to mitigate the impacts we have on marine turtles.

1.      If you are snorkelling or diving and you see fishing line or litter, remove it from the reef. Make sure that you cut the line so as not to damage any coral or sponges that might be entangled in the line.

2. If you witness anyone taking or molesting turtles in the Cayman Islands please call the Department of Environment Chief Conservation Officer at 916-4271 or 911. If you are reading this from elsewhere then please call your local authorities.

3.   Use turtle friendly lighting (TFL) on beach front properties. Not only will this positively impact  turtle populations but also your wallet! In places such as Florida, where it is the law for all beachfront properties to have TFL, they can have up to a 70% reduction in electricity bills. Interested? Then keep an eye out for the next blog or for more information visit our website: www.doe.ky

4. Remove beach furniture at night to prevent females from being discouraged from nesting and to prevent entrapment.

These are only a few things that you can do. Next time we will go into more detail about what you can do to your property to make sure you help protect these magnificent creatures!

Until the next time!

Luc J

‘It’s the circle of life!’

Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba, Sithi uhm ingonyama… (Lion King – opening scene ;)) Ok so there may be no Pride Rock or Elton John involved, but the sea turtle life cycle is very long with many different hurdles from the moment a turtle lays her eggs until her offspring can reproduce. 

So let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!): the female turtle will crawl onto the beach after dark and will start the nesting process. Once she has located her desired nesting site she will start to dig her nest. Using her powerful front flippers she will start to carve out a big pit, the body pit. Once satisfied she will then use her back flippers and carve out a cylindrical egg chamber as deep as her back flippers can reach (up to a massive 1 meter – 3 ft – depth). When she can dig no further she will lay between 100-150 eggs in the chamber. On completing her laying, she will then cover the eggs with her back flippers and then will use her front flippers to cover her pit and camouflage the nest. She then returns to the sea and will continue to nest a further 3-6 times within the season, but she will never see her offspring again.                                        The eggs will remain incubating in the sand for 50-70 days before the hatchlings will emerge. Unlike you and me turtles do not have an X and Y chromosome and the sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature in the middle 3rd of the incubation phase. Temperatures of 28°C (82°F) or below produces all male offspring, 32°C (90°F) or above produces all female and 30°C (86°F) produces a mixed sexed clutch.                  Once they have hatched baby turtles will orientate themselves towards the ocean using the reflection of the stars and moon off the sea's surface (there are issues with development on the beaches misorientating hatchlings away from the water, but we will tackle this subject in an upcoming blog J). They will swim out as far as they can, known as the 2 hour hatchling frenzy, until they are picked up by the ocean currents. While they are in this frenzy they will not eat anything as they have their yolk sac - a packed lunch, which they have absorbed during development, sustaining them until they are out of immediate danger. They will then drift with the currents out into the open ocean where they will remain for a period of time which has not yet been identified and thus the phase is know as the 'lost years', where they hide within floating debris or Sargassum grass using it as a shelter from predators and feeding off the fish larvae, algae and plankton that are found under these habitats.                 After several years floating in their shelter, juveniles will migrate back to coastal waters when they are about the size of a dinner plate, where they adopt several specific feeding (foraging) sites. As we learnt last week, green turtles are true herbivores and will feed in the shallow lagoons, whereas the loggerheads and hawksbills will feed off-shore on coral reefs. Juveniles will not return to their natal site but reside in the areas where the currents distributed them, meaning that juveniles from distant natal areas live together until they reach adulthood.                                                                          Upon reaching adulthood, 20-25 years later, males and females will migrate thousands of miles from their foraging grounds to their natal breeding grounds. Because of the vast distances covered in travelling, adults will typically only make this voyage every 2-3 years. When they reach the breeding grounds, courtship takes place approximately one month before the before the nesting season, and can be with multiple males. Once courtship has taken place the female stored enough sperm to fertilize her clutches for the season, and when it is time she will make her way to the very same beach on which she originally hatched and will lay her nest, thus the cycle is complete.                                              And that’s the cycle in a nut shell. A staggering 20-25 years before a single female can start to reproduce. That’s a long time to try and survive for and we will touch on the threats to sea turtles in the next blog, and what’s even more astounding is we still do not know how long they can live. One of life’s little mysteries!

There’s just enough time for a quick anecdote (Anniedote – she’ll be proud of me!) if I may which highlights the massive span of time these individuals have before they can reproduce. My mum grew up for a period of time in Northern Cyprus and the turtles that she saw hatching on the beach are quite possibly some of the same turtles that I have been monitoring in my years of volunteering in Cyprus… Now that is also the circle of life! J

Until the next time folks!

Luc J

So you think you know your turtles?

 Historically the Cayman Islands had four out of the world’s seven species of turtle nesting around its coastline: the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) and the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). Today only the first three nest on our beaches. But can you tell the difference between our three remaining species?

No? Well let us see if we can sort that out for you!

First to the stage – the green turtle (Chelonia mydas):

Length: Can grow to an average size of 1.5m (5ft)

Weight: Can weigh up to 317.5kg (700lb)

Description: Green turtles are named for the unusual green fat that resides under their carapace and are found in shallow tropical and subtropical coastal waters. They have a dorsoventrally flattened body (a body that is flattened from top to bottom like a pancake) that is covered by a tear-drop shaped carapace with a scute pattern of 4,5,4. “Scutes” are the plates on a turtle’s shell. Green turtle shells have 4 scutes along each side and 5 scutes down the middle (see the diagram below). The carapace is coloured with flecks of green, brown, white and gold which gives it a mottled effect underwater. Unlike the other three species found here, the green turtle has a small unhooked beaked head at the end of a short neck.

Diet: They feed mostly on a variety of seagrasses.

Track pattern: When females crawl on to the beach, their tracks are very large and symmetrical in pattern. This is because female green turtles move their front flippers at the same time when crawling on the beach (like swimming the breaststroke). Green turtle nests are characterized by a very large pit (hole) and mound of sand.

Hatchling ID: Hatchlings tend to be grey in colour with the same 4,5,4 scute pattern. They are distinctively identified by their white underbellies and trailing fin edges.  They tend to be about 5cm (2 inches) in length and weigh around 25g (0.05lb).

Favourite saying: “You so turtely rock dude!”

Next to take the stage is the loggerhead (Caretta caretta):

Average length: Can grow up to 1m (3ft)

Weight: Can grow up to 113kg (250lb)

Description: Loggerheads, so called for their distinctive large beaked head and thick neck, are found in temperate and tropical regions inhabiting both oceanic and near shore habitats. They have a slight heart-shaped carapace with a scute pattern of 5,5,5, which tends to be a reddish brown in colour while their neck and flippers tend to be reddish brown on top, but pale yellow underneath.

Diet: The loggerhead is predominantly carnivorous with a very powerful set of jaws used to feed on

crustaceans, whelks, and commonly conch.

Track pattern: When females come up onto the beach to nest their tracks are asymmetrical in pattern. This is because they move their front flippers alternatively, like swimming the front crawl. Loggerhead nests are small and scrappy compared to green turtle nests.

Hatchling ID: Hatchlings tend to be in dark brown to grey in colour with dark or sometimes pale yellow underbellies (in contrast to the white underbellies of green turtle hatchlings. Again they have the same 5,5,5 scute pattern as adults and they are generally around 4cm (1.5 inches) long and weigh about 20g (0.04lb).

Favourite quote: “Does this conch make my neck look big?”

And last but by no means least – the hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata):

Average length: Grows up to 65-90cm (25-35inches)

Weight: Can grow up to 45-70kg (100-150lb)

Description: The hawksbill is smallest turtle found nesting and residing in the Cayman Islands. They have a long elongated head that tapers down to a sharp beak point, and are found in seas associated with a healthy coral reef system. They have a distinctive shell pattern, where the carapace is dark golden brown, with streaks of orange, red and or black with overlapping scutes in a 4,5,4 pattern and serrated edge at the back of the shell.

Diet: Being associated with a healthy coral reef, hawksbills feed on coral, algae, invertebrates and their favourite, sponges.

Track pattern: When females come up onto the beach to nest they have an asymmetrical crawl pattern. It is very hard to identify the difference between loggerhead and hawksbill tracks. However, from personal observation, the hawksbill track tends to have a very distinctive tail wiggle through the entire up and downward track, and the hawksbill tends to nest in areas of vegetation. Definite species identification can be made through night-time tagging surveys or by examining hatchlings or embryos after nests hatch.

Hatchling ID: Hatchlings tend to be in dark brown to reddish brown in colour with dark brown underbellies. Again they have the same 4,5,4 scute pattern and are generally around 4-5cm (4-5 inches) long and weigh 15g (0.03lb).

Favourite quotes: “Really, another picture...fine... all I wanted was to have my lunch in peace and quiet!”

And that’s that folks! Remember these key identification points: 1) the number of scutes, 2) the head and beak shape, 3) are they eating and if so what? And finally 4) track patterns (if you are lucky enough to stumble across a turtle or turtle track on the beach).      

So why not impress your friends with your new found knowledge!

Until the next blog!

Luc :)