Our feet sink into the soft black sand, waves slapping against our shins as we search for steady footing on the sloping beach. Lights will startle the turtle, so we run in darkness, navigating around enormous driftwood logs and stumbling over coconuts and vines.
Nature Conservancy researchers are working hand in hand with preservation rangers from Haevo neighborhood, in the Solomon Islands, to connect 10 satellite tags to nesting leatherback sea turtles. The information they gather will assist safeguard a few of the most crucial nesting beaches for these critically endangered turtles, and expose their migration paths throughout whole oceans.
The other rangers are waiting in the forests shadows, all gazing intently at the enormous swelling against the tree line. We join them, gulping for air and leaking sweat. From the darkness I hear flippers thwack versus palm leaves, the swoosh of sand spraying, a soft snort.
Im sitting on a driftwood log, enjoying waves crash versus the moonlit coast when the walkie-talkie crackles. Its simply after 9:30 pm; weve only simply began our shift patrolling the beach for nesting leatherback sea turtles, and the call comes quicker than we anticipated.
Rick Hamilton, director of The Nature Conservancys Melanesia program, grabs the walkie-talkie. We wait, holding our breath with anticipation.
We hurtle back to the thatch shelter to get our bags. Mine complete of camera gear, Hamiltons holding a work light and 3 satellite tags cradled in an old shirt. And then we run.
Leatherbacks normally nest on the high tide. This female completed nesting just as the moon increased above the horizon. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC
Simply when I think I cant run any further, I see a thick, dark line perpendicular to the waves. Its where the turtle crawled ashore, leaving behind a large, deep track, like the tread of a monster truck.
“Turtle turning up, turtle coming up. Sector 25.”
A ranger sneaks forward, quickly shining a red-light torch to check her development. The narrow beam illuminates her backside, flippers scooping sand out of a deep, narrow chamber.
We turn on our headlamps, toss down our bags, and then chaos ensues.
Last Chance for Leatherbacks
Western Pacific leatherbacks nest throughout Indonesia, particularly West Papuas Birds Head Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. In the Solomons, they focus at just a handful of essential nesting beaches, including the 2-mile stretch of black volcanic sand known as Haevo.
By 2040, researchers anticipate that the Western Pacific leatherbacks will be trimmed to just 100 nesting sets each year. “Theyre crashing hard, and its going to continue unless we jail the decline,” states Peter Waldie, acting director of TNCs Solomon Islands program.
My very first encounter with a leatherback came simply a couple of days earlier, at the beginning of our week-long stint at Haevo. She crawled up from the sea prior to moonrise, digging her nest in the middle of a tangle of vines on the high dune.
A measuring tape stretched throughout her carapace checks out nearly 6 feet long, and her front flippers extended another 2.5 feet on either side. Hard and rigid as aircraft wings, those flippers enable her to swim at speeds quicker than a bottlenose dolphin, or to dive to depths of nearly 4,000 feet on a single breath. She spends many of her life in the open ocean, feeding on jellyfish far from shore.
Its simply one beach, but what takes place here could tip the balance for the entire population of Western Pacific leatherbacks.
Ranger Anita Rosta Posala walks along Haevo beach at dawn. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC
Leatherbacks evolutionary origins stretch back more than 100 million years, but in the past couple of years their populations have actually declined significantly. The turtles in the Western Pacific are among the hardest struck. Researchers approximate that this genetically unique subpopulation is now seriously endangered, having actually decreased 83 percent in just 3 generations. Only 1,400 reproducing grownups are believed to endure, and the population is still falling.
A Night on Patrol
The Leatherback Pit Crew.
Khulano means leatherback turtle in the regional language.” You dont have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that if you kill all the turtles on a nesting beach, youre in problem,” says Hamilton. A previous TNC research study surveyed regional markets for turtle products, finding thousands of turtles for sale.
As we get ready, I ask the rangers what Haevo was like before the preservation work started.
The ranger station at Haevo beach. Khulano indicates leatherback turtle in the local language. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC.
” Earlier work recommends that many of these turtles– the ones nesting in the austral summer season– will return to foraging premises in New Zealand and Tasmania,” states Hamilton. “But we believe that a few of the turtles that nest here, in the middle of the year, migrate more than 10,000 miles from the US west coast.”.
Other turtle species can be hunted for subsistence, not sale, however they cant be eliminated while on the nesting beaches. In reality, both guidelines are almost never enforced. A previous TNC research study surveyed local markets for turtle items, finding thousands of turtles for sale.
Hamilton states that the leatherback work is modeled off of similar operate in the Arnavons, where TNC has actually dealt with local communities for nearly 3 decades to secure a crucial rookery for hawksbill sea turtles. Nesting numbers there have actually more than doubled in the previous 20 years, and the Arnavons was recently named the first marine national park in the country.
Earlier that night, the rangers start work at sunset. A lots guys and ladies rush about the thatch-roofed hut, becoming their brilliant green work uniforms, brushing teeth, and gulping down the last of their rice-and-tuna dinner as some identical regional popular song uses the radio. The plastic folding tables are spread with charging flashlights and walkie-talkies, spare pens and information sheets, and thermoses of instantaneous coffee and tea … everything we require for a nights deal with the beach.
Her eggs come by twos and 3s into the deep cavity in the sand. Rangers Nora Tuti and Lonsdale Balu gently eliminate them, counting as they go, and position the eggs into a 5-gallon plastic container. Theyll be re-buried securely in a hatchery in simply a few minutes.
As soon as Heniz finishes, Lynette Haehathe pulls out a yellow tape measure and extends it throughout the turtles shell from tail to shoulder. At 5 feet and 3 inches, shes only a medium-sized leatherback.
Each alone in the open sea, bring the future of their types on their backs.
Weeks later on we d see that same track, together with nine others, as the leatherbacks ended up nesting and started moving back to their foraging grounds. Some swim southeast, passing Fiji, others turning more sharply south to beeline for New Zealand, or perhaps Tasmania. 3 swim directly through a cyclone.
Unlike other turtle types, leatherbacks arent strictly site-loyal.
We show up 30 minutes later on. The rangers disperse in groups of 2 and three, each taking up their vigil on a various area of beach. Hamilton and I stay just outside of the camp, viewing shooting stars streak throughout the sky and scanning our area of beach for any movement.
When the turtles are done nesting, the tags will track them along their months-long journeys to their cold-water foraging grounds.
A journey of that length represents among the longest migrations worldwide, on par with bigger pelagic types, like humpback and gray whales, or bar-tailed godwits traveling from Alaska to New Zealand.
Leatherbacks are the only turtle types entirely protected under Solomon Islands law, however the rangers inform me that a lot of individuals arent knowledgeable about the rules and enforcement is nonexistent. Couple of, if any, of the rangers here knew it was unlawful to kill a leatherback till the tracking program started.
The information from those tags– which tapes the turtles precise GPS areas– will expose if any of Haevos leatherbacks are nesting somewhere else on the island, and can assist direct the facility of future community sanctuary.
Rodney Heinz crouches down to connect 2 metal tags, one to each of the turtles hind flippers. Then he moves to deal with the turtle and takes a small DNA sample from one shoulder and inserts a little microchip into the other. (Similar to the microchips utilized to help identify lost animals, it offers a backup recognition approach to the flipper tags.).
The Journey Home.
The tags can also tape sea temperature level, how deep a turtle dives, and when turtles leave the water to nest.
” During the nesting season, the males from the village would come to the beach and wait,” says Benson Clifford, who has worked as a ranger here for 8 years. “When the leatherbacks came ashore, they would eliminate them and share the meat with the entire village.”
” You dont need to be a rocket researcher to realize that if you kill all the turtles on a nesting beach, youre in difficulty.” Richard Hamilton.
In the previous couple of years, human population development has increased the hunting pressure to unsustainable levels. Integrated with other hazards, like entanglement in longline fisheries and increasing seas removing nesting beaches, the pressure is pressing leatherbacks over the brink.
” All of the turtles that came near nest would pass away,” says Clifford. “And they kept eliminating nesting leatherbacks right up till 2013.” That was the year that TNC started a leatherback tracking program at Haevo.
Leatherbacks carry out a few of the longest migrations worldwide, traveling as much as 10,000 miles throughout the Pacific Ocean. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC.
Benson is already strolling down the beach towards the closest hatchery, where hell rebury the eggs above the high tide mark.
I kneel down in the sand in front of the turtle, gazing into her eyes one last time, my face inches far from her own. She blinks, and the clear mucus leaking from her eyes jiggles as she gazes back. And then, by method of farewell, she snorts in my face.
” You do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that if you kill all the turtles on a nesting beach, youre in difficulty,” states Hamilton. “These animals move throughout whole oceans, but when they come here to nest, its an important, life-stage bottleneck. That offers us a real opportunity to secure them when it matters most.”.
We collect our things and begin the long walk back to the rangers station, looking back over our shoulders to watch the sun slide up into the salmon-pink sky. The rangers call this the “zig-zag walk;” we all stumble down the beach, so exhausted we cant walk in a straight line.
The satellite tag were connecting tonight is one of 10 tags being used throughout this nesting peak, which stretches from November to January. The rangers will connect more tags in a couple of months time, throughout the smaller sized mid-year nesting season in May and June.
Forty minutes later we reach the station. Im brewing a cup of tea as Hamilton calls me over, motioning to his laptop computer. On the screen, a map of the Solomon Islands, all deep green islands scattered across dark blue seas. And offshore of Haevo, an intense pink line, going out to sea..
At the center of the mayhem, Clifford and TNCs Simon Vuto work rapidly to attach the satellite tag. Hung on with wire thread and epoxy, the tag will record the turtles area continually, and after that send that details to close-by satellites. The tags can likewise tape-record sea temperature level, how deep a turtle dives, and when turtles leave the water to nest.
The rangers complete in the nick of time, going back as she starts to complete the now-empty nest cavity. She wiggles backward and forward, front flippers sweep sand backward as her hind flippers press the stacks into the hole. The satellite tag looks like a small barnacle versus the smooth curve of her carapace.
The rangers make this trek each and every night, supervising the beach and recording information on any turtles that come up to nest. Similar monitoring programs are underway at Sosoilo, an hours boat trip north of Haevo, and at Sasakolo, on the islands western side.
Lynette Haehathe checks to make sure the satellite tag is protected. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC.
Hamilton and I are still capturing our breath as the rangers swarm around the nesting turtle like a pit team around a race car. Shes gotten in a trance-like state as she starts to lay and hardly signs up the frenzy of activity. We only have about 20 minutes.
Benson Clifford has worked as a conservation ranger for 8 years. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC.
With a lot time and effort entering into protecting Haevos leatherbacks, Hamilton and his group wish to ensure that these turtles are well and really safeguarded, even if they select to nest in other places on Isabel Island..
” If a turtle nests at a vulnerable beach, theres a likelihood that her eggs could be flooded with saltwater or she will be eliminated for food,” states Hamilton. “So our objective would be to produce a network of ecological-linked safeguarded areas.”.
The leatherback go back to the waves after nesting. The satellite tag connected to her back will assist conservation efforts to save Haevos leatherbacks. © Justine E. Hausheer/ TNC.
Thanks to the tracking program, Haevos leatherbacks are well protected, and nesting numbers are starting to increase. Theres no guarantee that this turtle will return to Haevo in 10 days time to lay her next clutch of eggs. Unlike other turtle types, leatherbacks arent strictly site-loyal. They might nest on their natal beach, where they themselves hatched, or they might nest at another website close by.
Its totally dark by the time we leave. Slipping off our shoes, we stroll along the edge of the waves. Our location is the ranger station at far end of the beach, which curves gently around a little bay to the mouth of a crocodile-filled river. The black sand still radiates the suns warmth, and banks of steam envelop us as we trudge.
Sea turtles are a standard food source for Solomon Islanders, usually consumed on special events like funeral services, weddings, or birthdays. (When Hamilton and I journey to Haevo on an overnight regional ferry, the boat captain revealed that the ship rules consisted of: no cigarette smoking, no drinking, no drugs, and no live turtles.).