Tag Archives: sea turtles

Outreach, Research Programs, Sea turtles

CEI Participates in Deep Creek Middle School’s “School Without Walls”

CEI Researchers Annabelle Brooks and Meagan Gary took a class of Grade 7 students from Deep Creek Middle School to get hands-on learning experience, capturing and tagging sea turtles in Half Sound, Eleuthera.  The class was part of the middle school’s “School Without Walls” program which aims to tackle unique and pertinent issues confronting the surrounding community.  Students waded out into the mangroves and captured 5 turtles and multiple bonefish.  All were measured and tagged and released back into the wild.  For many of the students, this was their first time exploring the mangroves ecosystems of Eleuthera.  Two of the turtles were captured for the first time, which the kids named “Franklin” and “Slash”.

Students form a “scare line” that spans the creek, chasing turtles and fish into the net near the mouth
The seine net is carefully rolled up, removing any debris.
Vital statistics were recorded.
DCMS Grade 7 and CEI Turtle Research Team

 

 

 

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Educational Programs

Pacific Ridge School’s First Few Days at The Island School

The past two days have been primarily taken up with learning about and surveying green sea turtles in the local sounds and creeks. We began yesterday with a mini-class taught by Lucie, a researcher at CEI completing a baseline survey on turtle populations in South Eleuthera.  We learned that there are 5 different species in the area–Green, Olive Ridley, Loggerhead, Leatherback and Hawksbill–though some are more abundant than others.  All of the species are protected under international treaties, though very little is known about their populations, migratory habits, etc.

After learning about the turtles and how Lucie conducts her studies, we headed out to Jack’s Bay to do our first survey.  We hiked in to the beach and got picked up to go out to the seagrass beds where the turtles usually hang out.  Spotting turtles requires two people to stand on the bow deck of the boat and look in the seagrass for turtles.  It is not an easy job, but once we all saw one turtle, it was much easier to spot them.  We saw a few from the boat (and we were all really excited!), but when we got in to snorkel with them, they had all disappeared!  We were a little bummed to miss swimming with the turtles, but Lucie assured us that the next day would be even better at Half Sound.

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Today (Tuesday), we woke up and completed a run-swim for our morning exercise.   Continue reading →

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