Our team will conduct studies on the behavior, physiology and migration patterns of the leatherback turtles on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. We will help tag and identify turtles, record nest locations and help determine hatchling success. Researchers and scientists have been working with these turtles in for the past 17 years in attempt to understand the impact of human activities and pollution. This work has led to the establishment of a National Park and a Marine Biology field station.
Click on the link below to see a video clip we filmed of hatchlings that emerged from the hatchery last week and were waiting in a bucket until it was dark enough to release them into the ocean.
posted by Fiona O'Doherty & Jennifer Seshadri @ 1:56 AM
Research supported by:
Our expedition fellowships are funded by Marymount School: 
The Live from the Field program is made possible by a generous grant from the National Geographic Education Foundation:
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7 Comments:
fantastic footage guys!. the effort that the hatchlings have to put in, in order to reach the beach.
They are beautiful little creatures.
kailen and ger.
thats so cool! whats been the most interesting part of the trip so far?
we miss you ms o'd!!
love julia katie t and alex
you guys got such great footage! the poor little hatchlings have to do so much to get to the water!
Hi Ms.OD! I hope your having a great time in Costa Rica! I was wondering, and I'm guessing that since the nesting process is only the mother's job, do the fathers of these turtles at any other point have a role in the lives of their offspring? Also, what happens if the hatching process goes wrong for a leatherback and it does not survive, or if it cannot make its way back to the water safely? What do the people have to do?
Hope your having lots of fun!
Maeve
Hey Ms. O'D!!! We have a couple of questions for you...
1. Do you miss us??
2. We know that you have to do most of your work from 11 pm to 6 am. Has it been hard for you to adjust?
3. How do you find the turtles that you're conducting research on? You do a lot of work on counting eggs and nesting females...where do you find them?
WE MISS YOU :)
Love Kim, Emily, KC, and Chloe
Hi Katie, Julia and Alex - Guess what, I miss you too! It's so hard to say what the most interesting part of the trip has been, The whole thing has been amazin and so mush fun too. We did have something special happen which we will post on the blog later - so until then I am keeping you in suspense!
Hi Maeve, Thanks for posting great questions. The only role of the father is to fertilize the eggs. He never comes to land and has no more part in the lives of the hatchlings. Adding to that, the female also just comes to land, lays her eggs and leaves. The hatching success of the eggs laid on the beach is about 68% while the sucsses in the hatchery is about 85%. Some eggs just stop developing - there are four stages of development which they look for after the excavate a hatched nest.These stages range from absolutely no development (stage 0) to completely formed embryos (stage3). We found a stage 3 in a nest we excavated 2 days ago which was great to see.
Hi Kim, Emily, KC and Chloe - of course I miss you! The first few nights took some adjusting to , but after that I got used to it. Also the tides have changed in the last few days, so we have been patrolling from 7pm to midnight allowing for a full nights sleep, which has made it a lot easier.
Wow ms.O'Doherty and ms.Seshadri that was some great footage i loved it. They were so cute just moving around. Ms. Seshadri, why were they in that bucket, did you save them and then put them in the water?
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