According to popular wisdom, you should not count your chickens before they hatch. You can, however, count your turtles. Today was almost a carbon copy of yesterday: frolicking dogs, squawking galahs and arriving at the beach to the sight of a turtle team attending to a nest laid over night.
Today, I had the chance to have a lengthy chat to the turtle team. The mamma turtle who visited the beach last night laid her crop of eggs too close to the high tide mark. To protect the eggs they had to be moved further up the beach. While this went on, I watched and talked. I found out that between November and March members of the Sunshine Coast volunteer turtle squad walk every beach between Bribie and Noosa just before the sun come up. Every nest is documented and the work has ensured 90 per cent of the eggs laid survive. The eggs are laid about 50 centimetres deep and there are about 140 each time. When the eggs are laid they are soft and can easily survive the drop. But they harden and so have to be handled with extreme care when they are moved. The eggs look remarkably like ping pong balls. In 60 days they will look like hatchlings. Awesome.
Today, I had the chance to have a lengthy chat to the turtle team. The mamma turtle who visited the beach last night laid her crop of eggs too close to the high tide mark. To protect the eggs they had to be moved further up the beach. While this went on, I watched and talked. I found out that between November and March members of the Sunshine Coast volunteer turtle squad walk every beach between Bribie and Noosa just before the sun come up. Every nest is documented and the work has ensured 90 per cent of the eggs laid survive. The eggs are laid about 50 centimetres deep and there are about 140 each time. When the eggs are laid they are soft and can easily survive the drop. But they harden and so have to be handled with extreme care when they are moved. The eggs look remarkably like ping pong balls. In 60 days they will look like hatchlings. Awesome.
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