Amphibian Rescue Moscow High Students Spend A Week In Mexico Helping Save Sea Turtles

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Tuesday, November 11, 1997): Correction Not amphibians: Turtles are reptiles. A headline on Monday’s Our Generation page incorrectly labeled them.

Working through the night an arm’s length from poachers to save sea turtles doesn’t sound like much of a vacation.

But for Lee Anne Eareckson and the Moscow (Idaho) High School Environmental Club it was a great time.

At the end of September they packed their bags for a week at Camp La Gloria in Mexico. The camp was anything but luxurious; no running water or electricity.

The students collected rain water for drinking and washing, said Hannah Vander Zanden, a junior.

The students were paired with biologists in Mexico who work to save Olive Ridley sea turtles. The trip was arranged through Oneworld Workforce, an organization based in Flagstaff, Ariz. that matches groups with educational and charitable working trips.

Even though conditions at Camp La Gloria were primitive, Vander Zanden said it didn’t matter once the work started, and there was plenty of work.

On the first night, exhausted students were rounded up for a turtle hatching.

“Everyone was getting ready for bed, and the biologists come and say there’s been a turtle hatching. You guys really need to come down and help release them on the beach,” said Melissa Neer, a senior.

Students carried buckets of turtles to the beach where they poured them onto the sand at the edge of the water. The turtles followed the light of the moon and quickly disappeared in a wave.

During the day, students went to local schools, helped with camp chores or tended to the turtle nursery. At the schools, the students helped build a Palapa.

“It’s a shelter covered with leaves from palm trees,” Vander Zanden explained.

Back in the nursery, eggs continued to hatch, keeping the Moscow students busy.

Kristin Coleman, a senior, said, “If you didn’t get to the nest in time, the turtles died.”

She explained that the newborn turtles were at risk of being eaten by crabs or, if they were in the sun for more than 20 minutes, they would dry up and die.

Vander Zanden said it can take four days for the turtles to climb out of the nest after they hatch.

“They’re exhausted at first, but then they have so much energy.”

After the baby turtles emerge, they are taken to a wading pool where they wait to be released into the sea at night.

The eggs in each nest at the nursery are counted and, at set intervals, the nests are excavated and inventoried to see how many eggs hatched.

When night fell, some of the students went to the beach, turned off their flashlights and released the baby turtles into the moonlit sea.

Other students worked through the night collecting eggs from turtles nesting on the beach. The students roamed the beach looking for nesting turtles. They weren’t alone.

Egg poachers were out collecting eggs, too. Not long ago, egg collecting was legal in Mexico and today sea turtle eggs are delicacy sold on the black market. This made the students’ job a life or death situation for the turtles. Each nest they got to was one the poachers didn’t.

As the mother turtle began digging her nest, the students dug a hole right behind her. When she laid an egg, they took it and put in their hole. This way when the mother turtle covered her nest, she wasn’t covering her eggs.

“They (turtles) were in a trance,” Vander Zanden said. “They were totally oblivious to the fact that we were there.”

Each turtle laid about 100 eggs, which were taken to the nursery and reburied for hatching. During the club’s stay, 25 nests were collected and 45 eggs hatched.

“I learned how the environment works. It’s really sad, we’ve made it so these turtles need help to do what they should naturally be able to do,” Neer said.

The students said they gained a lot from the trip.

“We’re already planning our trip for next year,” said Eareckson, the club adviser.