December in the sea turtle project

One month in the sea turtle project has gone by very fast. It feels like we just arrived to the Island, but when looking back, all kinds of things have happened. Many such that have not happened before.



Otter prints

 On one my first walks on the beach I spotted an otter. Some people reported seeing them last season, but we had not seen any before and I did not manage to see one. This time I saw one running in the vegetation line, but I did not have my camera ready, so I only managed to get photos of the tracks. Interestingly right next to the otter foot prints were also some kind of cat prints. They looked a bit too far apart to be from a domestic cat and we don’t have too many of them on the Island, so maybe these were leopard cat prints.

In the mid December we received our first Thai volunteers. It was great. Two Thai girls from Bangkok spent 10 days with us and it was nice experience for all of us. We learned a lot about our village and local people and the girls seemed to enjoy the project and especially the reef survey we did during their stay. We hope to have more Thai volunteers in the future.

Before Christmas also our first Finnish volunteer of the season arrived and she is a keen bird watcher. This meant that we all started to pay more attention to the bird species of the Island. Within just few days we realized how many different bird species we can spot just around our village. Even I, who am not so good identifying different birds, have learned to know some characteristics of birds. And thanks to our volunteer, I have now names to put to my photos. I am especially happy about a photo of 3 Lesser Adjutant Storks, 4 parakeets spotted on the savannah and Woodpeckers seen from my window.


In the observation we have been spotting few juvenile green turtles swimming about and eating jellyfish. Last season we kept seeing many green turtles in the area, but now it seem there are less of them around.

One special moment occurred when on the 26th of December we had a 2004 tsunami memorial in our village and the chief had requested that we would release a sea turtle. First we did not think we could get one, but amazingly everything came together on Christmas Eve and Phuket Marine Biology Centre gave us one 14 months old green turtle to be released. Very high official Mr. Ambur came to the memorial event and he was the one releasing the turtle. On the little beach behind the village he named the turtle ‘Free of Danger’ and we watched it swim in the sea first time in its life. We were very happy to see it go and hopefully it will live up to its name and stay away from fishing gear and plastic in the sea.

But the best was saved for the last day of the year. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, we found a green turtle nest on the beach 1. Finding it was a bit dramatic as our staff member who found the nest saw a boat hanging around near the nest and she said it seemed that the nest area was marked with flags and sticks. This meant that our staff had to be extra careful to cover up the area after egg chamber was found and we confirmed the existence of the eggs. The team camped on the beach to ensure the safety of the nest and stayed there also in the morning. Usually after a day people no longer poach the eggs, so we can relax a bit. This shows us how important it is that we reach the beach early in the morning and can cover up the tracks of the turtles, which are easily seen far away at sea.

Now we also have something to look foward to, in 60 days we should see some little hatchlings emerge from the nest and hurry to the sea to start their dangerous journey.