Once you have eaten lunch and moved into your room, you will get a chance to explore around the station until your sea turtle training session begins. The Research Coordinator will give you a short presentation on sea turtle ecology and identification. You will also be shown where the schedule with the research shifts is located.

A Research Assistant applying a tag to a leatherback's rear flipper

Measuring the curved carapace length (CCL)
of a green sea turtle

After dinner, you will get together with the Research Assistants in your group to find out what needs to be done before the first shift at 8pm. When your shift begins, everybody meets in the Dining Hall and then heads out onto the beach.

When you first walk out on the beach at night, it will be pitch black. After awhile your eyes will adjust to the darkness and you will be able to see, especially if the stars or moon are out. As you walk down the beach you will be looking for a turtle crawling out of the surf or for turtle crawl tracks. You will learn to identify turtle tracks and which direction they are heading by feel. No lights are allowed on the beach at night.

Checking for tags on a green sea turtle

Participant and RA excavating a green turtle nest

While the majority of the turtle research occurs at night, STC is also has some research activities during the days, such as morning nest checks and nest inventories.

When a sea turtle is observed laying eggs into a nest, the nest location is marked. Nest locations are recorded based on the 1/8 mile marker to the north of the nest.

RA, participants and locals work to determine nest success

Tortuguero beach with mile markers (tall poles in center and right)

Marked nests are checked every morning during a morning survey to monitor the condition of the nest. This provides information on nest predation, egg poaching and hatching. If a nest does not hatch after 70 days (between 50 and 60 days is typical in Tortuguero), then the nest is excavated to determine what happened to the eggs.