It’s the start of Turtle season in Greece

We love hearing all about what our volunteers have been up to and here is an update from the Turtle Conservation team who are based on the island of Kefalonia in Greece:

“April 30th 

It’s the start of the turtle season on the island and our first groups of volunteers arrived and got right to work. The sun has returned, and our early-season turtle tagging is now underway.

Our first group helped us capture and mark 41 new loggerhead turtles, with a total of 76 turtles (both new and previously known) recorded across four different shifts in Argostoli harbour. This is a part of our Capture-Mark-Recapture (CMR) project that is vital to understanding more about the population of sea turtles, both locally and in the larger surrounding area.

They have also been getting involved in other activities, including beach profiling, beach clean-ups, and participating in the Argostoli municipality clean-up in harbour and lagoon area, while still saving some energy for evening activities such as beach rounders, beach yoga, and turtle bingo!

We also carried out a successful rescue of Mesut who is a turtle which was spotted via drone survey with a fishing line tightly entangled around his front right flipper. We managed to act quickly, remove the line, assess him, and release Mesut back into the harbour where hopefully he will make a quick recovery.

May 17th 

The next new group of volunteers have arrived in Kefalonia. We have had 4 successful days of carrying out our the CMR (Capture-Mark-Recapture) project in the harbour with 72 turtles monitored. An incredible 42 turtles were not previously known to us - one of which was a green sea turtle! It is really exciting that each year we are finding new turtles, many of whom are coming into the harbour here to mate and hopefully nest on our protected beaches later in the season. 

Unfortunately, we had a few newly recorded injuries on our turtles that required more attention, but thanks to the efforts from the team and our volunteers, all the turtles were successfully released back into the harbour.

The volunteers have been in the harbour recording turtle interactions and observing foraging behaviour, all while familiarising themselves with carrying out surveys and turtle identification. 

They have spent over 10 hours completing beach cleans at locations such as Koutavos Lagoon and surrounding beaches. They help by removing rubbish and plastic from coastal habitats ahead of nesting season, all whilst helping the local municipality. 

After their day’s work, they can relax and enjoy some of our evening activities and spend their days off exploring what the island has to offer.”

If you would like to join the Turtle Conservation team in Greece you can learn all about the role and how you can get involved here.