In 1980 a baby turtle was born and kept by researchers for researching purposes. She was raised in a marine biology type place until she was one. She was given a tag, #5690, and a name, Maui Girl. Maui Girl was released off of the Big Island in 1981. In the year 2000 Maui Girl showed up on the beach right here by my house in Lahaina and layed several nests. Every other year ever since then, she has come back to the exact same beach to lay her eggs. Except last year she didn't show up as scheduled. But this year, one year late, she came back and so far has laid 6 nests! One nest every two weeks. I missed the hatching of the first nest but last Wednesday I got word that the baby turtles were coming out of the second nest. I missed that night but camped out on the beach Thursday night to see if there were any stragglers. Disappointed I went home and to bed, just to get a text message that two more babies had emerged from the nest. The Hawaii Fish and Wildlife folks showed up yesterday though, to excavate the nest. They do this for two reasons. The first is to save any baby turtles that might still be alive but can't dig themselves out, and the second is to research and document how many eggs, how deep the nest is, how many made it out of the nest alive etc. So I went down to watch. To the cheers of the crowd, they found 5 tiny baby sea turtles were still alive! They were stuck under their poor brothers and sisters who were already dead. The researchers waited until it was dark enough and they let the little guys finish their trek to the sea! It was "totally awesome dude!" (to quote Squirt) I will now be checking all the other nests on a two week basis hoping to see the rest of them hatch! This is especially cool for me because a huge part of my job has been learning about Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. I swim with them everyday and teach the Tourons all about them and help people find them in their special hiding places and cleaning stations. They are some of my most favorite of God's creatures and it's so fun for me to watch them start their lives! You can learn more about Maui Girl at these websites:
The Maui News: About her failure to show up last year.
The Maui News: Her Return this year!
The Truth of 5690
This is when the surviving babies that couldn't make it out on their own were uncovered.
This is their final trek to the ocean!
Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have some more news and photos from the other nests!
3 comments:
WOw. Amazing. My girls were glued to the screen and asking a million questions!
That is so cool! I'm jealous. :)
So cool! I read a book to my students every year called Into the Sea. I have always wanted to see it in real life! Thanks
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