Stage One: Boat Work

Puerta de San Juanillo where we rent boats from the artesanal fisheries association (ASOPESJU)!

Post written by Alexis High! Learn more about Alexis here!

For the first stage of Brie’s project, we captured as many post-mating couples as we could from the ocean just off of the coast of Ostional. After getting the turtles onto the boat, we took measurements, ultrasound images and blood samples, and then painted the females with a large T (for Texas A&M) in hopes to find the females during the following arribada. For Olive Ridley sea turtles, the arribada is period once a month that all the nesting females come out of the ocean to lay their eggs in a mass nesting spectacle. For this blog I will lay everything out as if you were here with us and explain as we go, you ready! Let’s go!

            It is 5:20 AM, rise and shine, Matti and I wake up, shovel down our breakfast and meet up with everyone else. Everyone gets in the car and we are on our way to San Juanillo. After a short singing session to the Pokémon theme song and/ or Despacito, we make it. We unload all of the equipment and hurry to meet with the Capitan, Don Santiago and Justin (the local assistant that helps us catch the sea turtles). We get on the boat and here we go!

Justin, our tortuguero extraordinaire and excellent local assistant, Matti, Ryota and Brie with a male we recaptured!

            We search with excitement over the crashing waves to try and find a mating couple, we search for their shells slightly upright and their flippers up in the air as if they are waving at us. Don Santiago has the best eyes and always finds the turtles before any of us. He yells, “PAREJA! PAREJA!” (a pair!) and Justin and Ryota (or Justin and Matti) jump into action by putting on their scuba masks, jump in, and swim to the post-mating pair. First, they make sure that intromission is no longer occurring, and then one of them pries the male off of the female by gently removing his claw that is attached to his flipper that is hooked onto the female’s shell, which disconnects the two turtles. Then one person grabs the male and the other grabs the female and presses the carapace of the turtle’s shell to their torso and bringing the turtles mouth above the water. Then, they swim the turtles over to the boat and we gently set the turtles inside the boat, cover their face with a towel to calm them down, and we begin data collection.

Ryota and Matti move the post-mating couples toward the boat.

            First, we start with the male. One RA (research assistant) writes down all of the specific details of the capture such as the time we caught the pair, the GPS location, and all of the measurements later recorded. As the RA is writing that down, Brie starts out by taking a blood sample while another RA holds the head of the turtle in place. The blood is quickly put in the cooler filled with ice in hopes to keep the blood in the best condition for later testing. Then, a RA takes measurements such as carapace length, width, and circumference, while Brie takes an ultrasound in the shoulder region of the male to measure the size of his fat layer.

Brie assists with keeping the turtle restrained and calm.

The olive ridley takes a big breath.

We then weigh the turtle. Finally, we tag the turtle and set him free. Then we move on to the female where we use the same procedure, except that before we get a blood sample Brie takes a gonadal ultrasound of the female in her hip region to look for follicles, atretic follicles, and eggs. This tells Brie a bit about where the female is in her reproductive cycle. She also takes this ultrasound to see if the turtle has full intestines or not to see if the females are eating during the breeding season, which is a critical part of Brie’s hypothesis.

Brie takes a blood sample (permitted by IACUC, and CONAGEBIO!)

After that, we continue using the same procedures as we did for the male; blood, shoulder ultrasound, measurements, weight. Then we clean the females shell and paint it with non-toxic tree marking paint in hopes to find her during the following arribada. Once the paint dries, we tag her and set her free. ¡Hasta luego mamá! See you later! We take measurements of the females post-mating and during the arribada to compare her hormones and measurements between the two events, which is again a large part of Brie’s research.

Ryota measures the olive ridley.

            During the times we were searching for pairs we saw a variety of wildlife such as manta rays, dolphins, crabs, needle fish, and a sea snake-yikes. 

            Boat work was a success in that we far exceeded Brie’s goal and captured 64 turtles- 32 pairs! No one got bit and the only casualty of the boat work was my phone. May she rest in peace in the bottom of the ocean. With that aside, we were all extremely happy with our work and were rewarded with pizza and gelato. A pretty nice pay off if I do say so myself. Hopefully, we will see the 32 females later during the next arribada which will be in early July. Fingers crossed and knock on wood!

The crew prepares to release the turtle. From left to right: Nicole, Matti, Don Santiago, Ryota and Justin.

A needlefish accidentally jumped into our boat! We immediately released the fish after this photo.