Turtles of the Great Barrier Reef

Far North Queensland, Australia July 18th - August 1, 2005

24 hours after leaving New York, I arrived in Australia…

The Gwendoline May

Where do the turtles live?

The “Before Picture”Lisa, Heather, Meg, Emily and Rik

All The Castaways!(aka “the after picture”

Back row: Ian, Bevan, Sam (hiding), Gresham, Meg, Heather

Front row: Emily, Rik In front of them: Lisa

Let’s say hello to Bevan in his language!

Wandarra nundo!

Welcome to Ingram Island!

Ingram Island National Park

Population: 0… I mean, 10

Coral Cay on the Great Barrier Reef

Moving In…

There he goes…

Unloading

Sam loads up our shower water.

The Kitchen (and Living Room)

The Sink

The Bathroom

The Other Bathroom

Dinner

Dessert

Ingram Island at Night

A new island being born

We took a walk back there…

… and look who lives there!

Juvenile Green Turtles!

Why are they called “green” turtles when they’re not green?

They’re green underneath!

This turtle is probably a few years old.

Once it is on its back, it cannot turn over.

Most turtles were too fast for us, so we had to take

out the boats…

Looking for turtles…

See any? Not here. The water is too deep.

Even if we saw some, it would not be safe to catch them.We should go down by the reef flat.

Look, there’s the other boat!

See any yet?

No, but I see a storm coming in.Everyone get ready to take a shower!

I see one! Ian, drive straight!

Get ready to jump!

Did he get it?

We got it!

This is an adult green turtle. It’s too big to put in the boat. Let’s measure it in the water.

How long is its shell?

On the move again… Sam is driving fast!

We see something!

Is it a green turtle again?

If you see one, you have to yell, “Yeah, that’s him!” so Sam can drive the boat in the right direction.

Why is Sam driving the boat with his FOOT???

Any turtles here?

Taking a break…

That’s enough relaxing. There are more turtles to

find! (We hope)

Quick, there’s one!Yeah, that’s him!

It’s a hawksbill!This one goes in the boat!

We’ll keep these in the boat until we get back to

the island.

There’s one! Yeah, that’s him! (Hey Ian, I thought you were

driving the boat!)

He got it!

Me, taking a turn!

Yeah, that’s him!Let’s watch this turtle

jump!

Another turtle jump(remember to say yeah, that’s him!)

We caught a lot of little ones this time….

… but sometimes we caught

big ones too!

This is a loggerhead.

Let’s get a closer look.

Get out of the way, guys!

That’s better. Hey Sam, watch your hand!!!

That is a BIG turtle!

Don’t get too close to the turtles’ mouths, or…

Let’s head back to Ingram Island. We have work to

do!

Time to work on some turtles!

This is a hawksbill. I can tell because it’s orange

underneath.

This one has barnacles on it!

Is this a hawksbill or a green turtle? How do you know?

Who caught this green turtle? It’s huge!

When you work with turtles, watch out for their

claws…

Hawksbill or green?Male or female?

Let’s get some measurements.

Emily is measuring how long the shell (carapace)

is.

How wide is it?

How long is its head?

Looks like a pretty long head to me.

Get the calipers. We’ll see how wide the head is, too.

Excuse us, buddy, but we have to flip you over…

Now we have to measure the other side too…

Even its tail!

Look, this one’s missing a piece!

Maybe it was bitten by a shark!

I’m going to be here for a

while… there are 29

today!

Good thing I like doing this!

Everybody’s busy!

So now we know what size they are. Do we need to know anything else?

Yup… time to see how heavy they are!

Juveniles… Get the little scale!

Using the little scale

Let’s see how much it weighs. We’ll put it in the computer with the other numbers.

That will tell us if there are more big turtles or little ones.

Hold still, Rik!

I’m trying, Lisa… This thing’s heavy! This is the 10th one I’ve lifted today!

Is anyone writing

this down???

The next one looks big. Better get the harness.

Careful… Can anyone see the scale?

This one’s heavy… almost 100 pounds!

Whew! It’s good to put that one down.

Careful… don’t drop it

on your foot!

We have to look inside this one to see if it’s male or female.

We’re going to do some laparoscopy!

Ian cuts a small hole so he can put the camera inside the turtle’s body.

After that he puts

some air in the turtle’s body. That makes it easier to

see.

This turtle is small, so guess who is the “operating table”?

Bigger turtles go

on the harness.

Ian’s looking inside with the laparoscope. It’s like a little camera that shines a light into the turtle’s body.

If it’s female, he’ll see ovaries. Maybe even eggs!

After Ian finishes, he’ll sew the hole back up.

Before we let it go, we have a problem…

These turtles kind of look alike. How will we tell

them apart?

That’s what the tags are for!

This turtle has a nice new one!

The tag goes into the turtle’s flipper.

Each tag has its own special number.

This is the tagger.Can you see the tag in it?

I’m getting ready to tag this one.

Travis holds the turtle while I tag it.

We put the tag number down on the data sheet. That is how

we’ll find the turtle’s information in the computer

later on.

Hawksbills get TWO tags, in case one falls off!

The turtle’s done! It can go home.

How do they know where to go?

We don’t know. But they do!

We hope we’ll see them again. But many turtles are

dying.

Some people hunt hawksbills for their shells.

Green turtles are hunted for food.

Some turtles get stuck in nets or die from eating

garbage.

Marine biologists like Ian are studying turtles to find out

what’s happening.

So far it seems like the turtles are in big trouble.

Will this turtle be lucky? We hope so.

We can help the turtles by taking good care of our

oceans.

We can also ask our government to make laws to

protect wildlife.

I hope that if I ever go back to Ingram Island, there will

still be turtles there.

I hope you enjoyed learning about turtles!

The End