Fiji / Vanuatu Sea Turtle Conference

7/12-22/2018

Marc Rice Joined George Balazs and Thierry Work (Co-chairs of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group) to travel to Suva Fiji to attend and present at the conference on the "Conservation of Sea Turtles within the Cultural Context of Oceania - Possibilities Beyond Protection"

Marc resented a talk entitled "Magnifying the Impact of Field Researh:  Involving students produces scientists and conservationists"

Marc Rice presents about the use of student volunteers in field research and how important and useful it is to involve students in field work

The conference attendees gathered together to get a group picture.

On the last day of the conference, Thierry Work (DVM) gave a lesson on how to do an external health evaluation of a turtle and then Marc Rice demonstrated the procedure to attach a satellite tag to a green turtle.  The turtle, captured earlier in the week, was given the name Julia and was release with the tag that afternoon.

Marc and George (right and left) pictured with Fiji Fisheries department personnel.

Susanna Piovano (front left), Marc Rice and the rest of the group that observed the sat tag attachment demonstration.

Marc Rice talking to folks about the "do's and don'ts" of attaching satellite tags to sea turtles.

The video clip above shows the release of "Julia" after the attachment of a telonics TAM 2640 satellite tag.

In addition to our work in Suva, Fiji, we made a side trip to Vanuatu to confirm our next trip there in January to attach satellite tags to more post nesting Hawksbill turtles.  While there we traveled to Tanna Island to visit the active volcano Yasur.  You can see some pictures of the trip to Tanna and the volcano at the Fiji-Vanuatu blog.

7/8/2018
A call came in at 1145 from Holly  working at Anaehoomalu Bay, Waikoloa, HI.  Turtle floating in water in front of Ocean Sports beach shack.  There was fishing line entangled around both front flippers and down mouth.

Arrived at A bay at 1215 and turtle was placed in a carrier and brought to a shady area on land.  Fishing line (5 lb test) had not cut in to left and right shoulder areas and was removed.  4 strands of line were down the throat and were cut as far down the throat as I could reach as the line would not come out.

Holly with the line entangled turtle.  She stayed in the water with it while I drove down to pick it up.. Awesome dedication.

You can see the light weight monofilament fishing line around both front flippers and the neck.  The line was not to tightly wrapped but it did go down the turlte's throat so I suspect that the real problem is internal. 

As you can see the plastron is very sunken and the turtle is severely emaciated.

Specifics about the Recovery

Location:  Anaehoomalu Bay, Hawaii Island

Lat:  19.915828 N

Long: -155.886837

CCW:  61.5

SCW: 57.0

Tags:  LHF = 407A424351

           RHF = 445438347B

           RFL = K453

Fishing line entangled and line swallowed.

Extremely emaciated and very lethargic- Held overnight for evaluation 

Turtle Independence Day - 2018

7/4/2018 - Mauna Lani Bay Hotel, Turtle Independence Day.

On 7/3/18 We went down to Muna Lani Bay Hotel (MLBH) and measured and weighed the four 2 year old turtles that were to be released the next day.  Three HPA students joined Laura Jim and Marc Rice to do the weighing and measuring.  There were 20-30 guest watching and asking questions while we process the 4 turtles.  The whole operation took about 1 hour.  The four turtles we placed back in the pond after being measured and pronounced ready for release on 7/4!

On the Fourth, 6 HPA students, Laura Jim and Marc Rice traveled down to the MLBH to set up posters and handouts for the turtle release celebration.  We focused on marine debris, fisherman/turtle interactions, the Kapoho volcanic event and the recent research we have done in Vanuatu.  Student helped to answer questions visitors had and they all enjoyed the excitement of the day.  Below are a few pictures of our setup and the team in action.

Measurement Day - 7/3/18

Marc, Shawn and Sihkea carrying the first turtle back to the weighing station. 

Bayla, shawn and Sihkea pick up the second turtle for weigh-in.

Reading the PIT tags to confirm which turtle we are working on.

Shawn cleaning the carapace of one of the four turtles to be released on July 4th.

Sihkea and Shawn control the turtle while Marc inspects the ventral side.

Sihkea and Shawn holding turtle still for measurement.

Marc, George and Sihkea doing the straight carapace length measurement.

Measuring the flipper width.

completing the oral exam.

Sihkea putting a finished turtle back into the atrium pond.

The Team: Laura, Bayla, Pi'i, Shawn, Sihkea, Henry, George and Marc.

Pictures from the 4th of July release:

A hula is performed honoring the Honu prior to the release.  There was a very large crowd present to witness the release of the four  2 year old Honu.

Students explaining the display boards.

HPA students manning the tattoo booth>

More tattooing!

Even the adults wanted the tattoos.

Students explaining our program.

Some of our displays.

Rescuing a little turtle

7/2/18 - Waikoloa, Hawaii
One of our STRP students observed a line entangled turtle north of Anaehoomalu Bay, Hawaii at noon and reported it to the HPA sea turtle hotline.  Marc Rice went down to A Bay and Holly showed the way to the turtle.
Below are images of the capture, line removal and release of the turtle- data sheet for this turtle is at the end of this post.

The entangled turtle was .64 miles to the north of A Bay beach so Holly and I walked there with a carrier to place the turtle in.

The little turtle was rather moribund in a small tidepool.... good call Holly!

Hollly picked up the turtle and placed in in our carrier so that we could work on the line tangled around its neck and right front flipper.

Fishing line wrapped around the RFL.

The line was around the neck and beginning to strangulate the right front flipper, cutting into the flesh - see below.

RFL shoeing how the line was cutting into the flesh of the shoulder.

After removing the fishing line we placed it on the carapace so get a picture of  it.

Once the line was removed we tagged the turtle and took pictures of the right and left side of the head for future identification.

About 25 minutes after we capture the turtle, Holly released it back to the ocean all free of line and with two new PIT tags.

Data sheet for rescued turtle.