Laura del Pilar Echeverri García

Nesting females monitoring and clutches protection of leatherback turtle at La Playona, Acandí-Chocó during 2008.

Dermochelys coriacea female arriving at the morning, May 2007 at La Playona (Chocó, Colombia), taken by Alejandro Montoya.

Native children from La Playona. This year we want to make aware of their environment, taken by Alejandra Cadavid Perdomo (CORIACEA Group).

At La Playona beach, the main documented threat to Dermochelys coriacea is excessive predation of eggs by domestic animals as much as by local people, reaching up to 100% nests loss. Because of this threat, since 1993, it has gone consolidating a monitoring program of D. coriacea nesting activity. This program has been developed mainly by the community, with occasional help from others organizations and the voluntary support of civil society. This proposal has originated with the aim to continue contributing to the monitoring activities which consist in the variables recording related to the reproductive ecology of females and nests protection in situ and in hatcheries.

This year, we have been performing national and international announcements for volunteer participation to support the monitoring of the D. coriacea nesting and hatching. We had performed a selection, organization and guidance of volunteers.

At La Playona, we are going to patrol three kilometres from the beach (those with higher volume of nesting females in last seasons) to locate females and nests for a period of 6 months. Measures shell, date, kilometre, zone of the beach, and number of fertile and infertile eggs, are going to be taken when a patrol finds a female. We are going to tag females.

Then, we are going to protect nests in situ, and those which are in risk are going to be moved to hatcheries. We must identify each nest with a unique serial number, record the nesting details, the oviposition and expected hatching dates. The temperature in 5 artificial and 5 natural nests is going to be recorded to evaluate the relocation effect on incubation temperature.

We are going to count hatchlings emerging from each nest and we are going to take 10 random samples for each nest, to record weight and measures of straight length and width of the shell.
After the measurements we must release neonates in different sectors of the beach to reduce the predation. Finally we are going to exhume nests to study their contents, and to examine the causes of embryos death and to estimate the emergence and survival rates.

Additionally we are going to continue with the volunteer program that we coordinate since last year. Also we are going to develop environmental workshops in Caleta School located in Caleta's town, it is recognized for the eggs harvesting done by the native people during nesting season.

For more information contact lauradelpilar@gmail.com, grupo_coriacea@yahoo.com or go to http://grupocoriacea.blogspot.com/

Project Update: May 2008

The monitoring began on March 2nd, with the active participation of CORIACEA group coordinators, GILA members and volunteers. From this date we have patrolled three kilometers from the beach to locate females and nests. Measures shell, zone of the beach, nest distance to water and vegetation, and clutch size are recorded when a patrol finds a turtle. We have not been able to tag females because of the lacking of tagging equipment. 52 turtles nested, the biggest one was 1.66 m curved carapace length and laid the biggest clutch with 115 fertile and 16 infertile eggs. Nests at risk of flooding, animal predation or harvest have been relocated to hatcheries. Additionally, we developed other activities: beach sign-posting, hatcheries repair, three census of trackways from kilometer 3 until the kilometer 14 (finding a total of 13 turtles trackways) and environmental workshops - principally about turtles biology -with children from Caleta School.

Project Update: June 2008

Hatchlings from a natural nest advancing towards sea. Taken by Viviana Márquez.

During April and May, the group monitored the beach from 20:00-04:00 hrs, and found that most females arrived at early morning. Several turtles had severe mutilations, and there were 3 dead females due to trammeled nets. Later, we identified the necessity of some interaction with the fishing community to fortify the conservation program in the region.

We located data-loggers in May to compare the temperature amongst natural and artificial nests.

We enthusiastically attended the first hatches on the 7th of May, and from this date hatch monitoring is carried out at the beginning of the night and at dawn. Up until now the fertility rate of females has been 68.2%.

Children from the Caleta School have learnt many things about turtles in our workshops. Also, we celebrated children's day with gifts and recreational activities, and did a field work with kids at Playona, but unfortunately they did not see any turtles.