NEWSLETTER 15 February 2011

NEWSLETTER


15 FEBRUARY 2011

                                   Grammy-Bee's First Green Turtle in 2011

The Christmas blizzard forced us to change our plans. We missed the Love Boat, so we flew directly to Miami to visit Ali Ingersoll, a St. George’s alumna and resident of Cat Island who is undergoing extensive therapy for a broken neck. Ali’s condition is improving with her spirit and hard work and the support of her family.

Two days later we celebrated New Year’s Eve with Diana Claridge and her family in Spanish Wells. Diana is a world famous marine mammal specialist who lives and works in Sandy Point, Abaco.

January 4th we took the Fast Ferry to Nassau to attend the Bahamas National Trust public meeting about the proposed shark ban. With support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the BNT has initiated a campaign to ban commercial shark fishing throughout the Bahamas. Many years ago the BNT pushed hard for legislation that banned the use of longlines to protect large pelagic fish and sharks. As a result of that ban and the exclusion of foreign fishing fleets, the shark population in the Bahamas is one of the healthiest in the world.

Pierre Cousteau and a representative of the Pew Trust joined Eric Carey and members of the BNT staff to announce the BNT campaign and explain the reasons for banning a commercial shark fishery in the Bahamas. They played to a packed house of believers. The questions from the children were the hit of the evening - questions like, “If mangroves are so important for fish why are people allowed to fill in the mangroves to build houses?” It was a great evening.

The next afternoon I had lunch with Eric and Charlene Carey and Portia Sweeting. There was a lot of serious talk about sharks, taking grouper off the restaurant menus in the closed season, educational outreach, volunteer programs, and the parks; but there was also plenty of laughter and good natured teasing about growing up on the wrong out-island. I always feel there is a fresh breeze blowing through the Trust. Barbara and I always leave Nassau fired up and ready to go.

After two weeks of boat maintenance and the installation of a new outboard on the speed boat, we headed south from Spanish Wells. Sib Reppert anchored alongside us in Norman’s Cay, and we had supper together at McDuff’s. Sib’s daughter, Victoria, works at the US Embassy in Tunisia, and her mother, Chris, was visiting her when the revolution started. Sib was in touch with them every day on Skype, and the stories he told us went way beyond the information published in the press. It seemed impossible, but Victoria and Chris felt safe in Tunis, slept at home to the sound of gun fire, and worked at the embassy every day.

The next day we were anchored inside Fowl Cay getting ready to visit the local schools and meet David and June Rosen to cruise in company to Andros. We gave a presentation on sea turtles at the Black Point Primary School before Shacara Lightbourne arrived from the BNT to award badges to the members of the Discovery Club. It was a lively celebration. The next day Barbara and I caught two small green turtles in Dotham Creek and carried them to the school so the students could help tag them. Hands on education can really spice up a day at school.

                                      Proud Keeper of the Turtle Scale


At the Staniel Cay All-Age School we talked about shark biology and the shark ban. Kids are always fascinated by sharks, and enthusiasm was high. When we mentioned the danger of a black market for shark fins among the Chinese workers at Baha Mar in Nassau, one boy leapt up, “And I’ll have to watch out for my dog.”

                                              Staniel Cay Enthusiasm

The trip to Andros was very successful but too short. We moored in Lisbon Creek, Mangrove Cay, and we met some wonderful people. We turtled in the western creeks with bonefish guides, Marvin Miller and “Shine” Greene and tagged greens, hawksbill, and loggerheads. The Rosens came with us when they could, but their mate, Allan, came every day and proved invaluable. I have never seen so many large juvenile hawksbill in one area, and subadult loggerheads are reasonably common just off the western coast.

                          Marvin and Allan with Green Turtle from Kit Sound

We gave presentations in the Mangrove Cay High School and Burnt Rock Primary. Androsians are fishermen, and their children know a lot about marine wildlife. The high school and primary students asked excellent questions.

                                    Mangrove Cay High School Students

The weather was dry, and we had a good easterly breeze, so the famous Andros insects did not bother us. The problem operating in Andros is distance. The men there think nothing of running up to 40 miles and back to the bonefish flats. We didn’t mind the runs to the west side and even down to Thatch Cay, but the gas consumption put a hurt on the wallet.

Back from Andros we refueled in Samson Cay and moved down to Black Point to take members of the Discovery Club to the Exuma Park. David and June Rosen donated their family’s 32’ Regulator and Allan’s time for a day, so we could carry 11 students and two teachers in the two boats. Mrs. McKenzie, the principal, and Juanita Monroe had the students all organized, and throughout the trip the students were very well behaved despite their excitement.

                                  Captain Allan, Students, and Mrs. Clarke

We ran the boats up to the southern anchorage in Wardrick Wells and then around to the headquarters where Andrew Kris, the head warden, met us at the beach. Andrew was fantastic with the students. He took them on a long tour of the cay showing the kids the various ecosystems and explaining things along the way. Two Defense Force officers went on the tour.

                                       Exuma Park Warden Andrew Kriz

After lunch we took the boats out to snorkel on one of the small heads near Emerald Rock. Since the park is protected, the small heads are covered with fish – not just grunts and snappers but also large grouper, Margaret fish, and crawfish. The kids were amazed.

The Exuma Land and Sea Park is one of the world’s great parks and the Caribbean region’s first marine reserve. It is beautifully managed and usually full of yachts and visiting scientists. When Barbara asked Andrew about visiting students groups, he could count on one hand the number of groups that had been to the park, and most were from the United States. “We need to get more Bahamian students here, and that’s why what you are doing today is so important.” That made us feel good, but it was also a challenge to make these visits more frequent and sustainable.

Next week we will fly to Nassau and take the Fast Ferry to Spanish Wells with Shelley Cant from the BNT to help promote the shark ban.

NEWS 30 November 2010

                                                 
ANDROS ISLAND

                                        

There are good reasons why so few people go to the west coast of Andros. Red Bays is in the far NW corner, but south of that there are no settlements or fuel or supplies until you reach Cuba. Charlie Bethell and Cindy run the Flamingo Cay Club up inside Wide Opening, and they are good people to know; but Charlie has to fly in all his supplies and cannot offer much to passing boats. There are no safe harbours on the west coast, though a four foot draft can be carried into a few of the creeks where there is all around protection with plenty of current and a zillion bugs.

There are, however, some excellent reasons to spend time on this uninhabited coast – fish, turtles, birds, and solitude. Androsians claim the finest bonefishing in the Bahamas, and the fish are found over so many miles of creeks and flats that it would take a lifetime to fish all the habitats. There are significant populations of sea turtles, and the birds, including flamingos, are magnificent. If you want to be alone, fish, and savor the wild life the west coast of Andros could be your place.

October 18th Trueranda Cox and Ortam Rolle arrived in Spanish Wells on the Fast Ferry from Nassau. Both girls are members of the Young Bahamian Marine Scientists (YBMS). Trueranda works for BREEF and is a BESS scholarship student, and Ortam is working for YBMS. Both plan to attend college next year.

On October 20th, after the usual hustle to get underway we left Spanish Wells for Chub Cay where we took on fuel at the Berry Island Club and then spent the night at anchor. The next day we ran 100 miles from Chub Cay to anchor inside Williams Island and go turtling on the west side of Billy Island.

Our mission was to check the major habitats identified by Karen Bjorndal and Alan Bolten in their excellent 2006 and 2007 surveys of the west side of Andros. We wanted to survey the habitats for numbers of turtles, species composition, and infection from fibropapillomatosis; and we wanted to tag and release as many turtles as possible and collect skin samples for DNA analysis. The DNA will allow us to determine (with a very high probability) where the turtles were born.

Strong easterly winds forced us to work only on the west side of Billy Island, but we had good light. The dominating characteristic of this part of Andros is mud – knee deep in most places. The flats around Billy are all this kind of soft mud which is stirred up by the wind, bonefish, turtles, and the outboard. We probably chased 4 turtles for every one we finally caught, because we would lose sight of the turtles in the muddy water.

In three days we caught 12 turtles, six of which were infected with fibropapillomas – one as badly as I have ever seen. The turtle had a lot of difficulty swimming with all the drag.

                                 First Green Turtle


We have positively identified three islands in the Bahamas where we find green turtles infected with fibropapillomatosis – Andros, Grand Bahama, and Crooked Island. All of the turtles are in relatively shallow water. We still do not know how this herpes type virus is transmitted or why it is found in some habitats and not others. Shallow water and muddy bottom seem to be common characteristics in the Bahamas, but we need to learn a lot more. The best we can do in the field is continually document the presence of the infection and interview local fishermen to learn what they know about the appearance of the infection and the locations where they find it.

                                 Getting Underway


Anyone who knows Andros would ask how we managed with the bugs. The answer is that we anchored far enough offshore to miss the mosquitoes, but the doctor flies nailed us while we were turtling. For every turtle we tagged, we each killed twenty flies – mostly after they had drawn blood. I had to laugh watching the girls standing in the bow hopping around, trying to hold on to the bow line, watch the turtle, point with the net, and swat flies at the same time. I was back aft trying to keep my eye on the turtles, drive the boat, and kill flies. I was in too much pain to laugh at myself. Finally we found an insect repellent cream that helped a little.

Charlie Bethell’s Flamingo Cay Club is a special place. We anchored as close as we could at low tide - 2 miles off Wide Opening in a good lee despite the distance offshore. Right away, we hopped in the speed boat and ran up the channel. Just as we approached the mangrove creek to the club, a friend of Charlie’s arrived in his float plane, so we let him pass and followed him up the creek which was barely wide enough for the floats, and the wing tips often brushed the mangroves on either side – quite an act. The east wind was keeping the tide from rising, so we couldn’t get FOXY LADY into the channel the next morning and had to stay offshore. We did, however, spend a wonderful afternoon and evening at Flamingo Cay. It was a real treat for the girls to spend a few hours socializing with someone other than myself.

                                 Big Loggerhead Creek


We hoped to tag some loggerhead turtles which are abundant in a couple of the creeks. We saw plenty of loggerheads blow, but the water was so muddy there was no chance to catch them. The only way to catch any turtles was to chase them down in the shallower water where the creeks meet the flats. At the head of Great Loggerhead Creek we caught one green turtle (infected with fibropapillomas).

Charlie Bethell was able to sell us some gas, so we could run 30 miles south of Wide Opening to work in Miller Creek where we counted 8 turtles blowing as we ran the two miles up to the flats. Near a rocky bar in the shallow water we found a beautiful 100 pound loggerhead which Trueranda went overboard to capture. We would have spent more time in Miller Creek, but thick clouds developed overhead and made it impossible to find the turtles.

                                 Trueranda and Loggerhead

After our day in Miller Creek, it was time to head back to Chub Cay and meet up with GERONIMO, the sailing school vessel owned by St. George’s School. They also tag turtles.

It was a twelve hour run to Chub Cay, but the weather was beautiful, and we arrived in time to fill up with diesel and contact GERONIMO whose crew had caught 4 turtles in the creek that afternoon. We made arrangements to meet them outside the creek the next morning.

The day with the GERONIMO crew was one of those magical days when everything comes together. The early morning looked iffy. We saw a few turtles but the tide was low, and there were clouds. In only an hour, though, we had caught a few turtles, and we just kept at it as the tide rose and the sky cleared. We used two boats and rotated crews with the four or five people on the beach. Our best turtle was the one we chased out of the creek into deep water. Meredith, the GERONIMO 1st Mate, swam almost the whole mile and finally caught the turtle. But all of the kids got in the water at some time during the chase. It was a group effort, and our girls did well.

         Meredith and the Foxy Ladies after a Long Chase

We ended the day with 17 green turtles, proving the population in the creek has increased dramatically.

     Captain Mike and Students Chasing More Turtles

That night I took the girls up to the Berry Island Club for an excellent supper of grouper, cracked conch, peas and rice, and salad after a 30 minute ride dodging potholes in an ATV – an out-island adventure meal.

The next morning I committed us to a day off for rest and shelling. We went up to the sand bore west of the cay for shells and then dove in the channel on the west side of Chub for biscuits and urchins. The girls got a pretty good selection, especially of the oblong delicate biscuits. Then back to hot dogs and packaged potatoes for supper. That was the best we could do at the commissary.

                                 Cleaning Shells in Chub Cay

The run back to Spanish Wells was exhausting in 20-25 knot southerly winds. The girls did a good job getting off the dock and letting the tow ropes out to full length when we cleared the marina before they sat down and slept. The seas were really cranky and rough, so I ran down to Nassau to get a lee. The water was reasonable north of New Providence and the rest of the way to Spanish Wells, and the girls came alive and ate some lunch. We made it to Muddy Hole by 1800 just as it started to pour rain.

We were back in the land of restaurants and stores and had cracked conch and grouper from Norma’s Take-Away while we watched “Grey’s Anatomy” to which the girls had become devoted.

The next morning we went to visit the Spanish Wells All-Age School. True met a former teacher who asked her to talk to her students about the BESS scholarship program in the afternoon. Interestingly, when I asked the 11th grade how many hoped to go to college, all but one raised their hands. When I asked the 10th grade the same question it was just the opposite – only one girl raised her hand. That is a better average than in previous years.

The next afternoon the girls were on the Fast Ferry back to Nassau. They had been on board FOXY LADY for three weeks. Despite the long runs down and back to Andros, the muddy water, doctor flies, and the strong easterlies, we had had a good trip. We confirmed a lot of the work done previously by Bjorndal and Bolten, collected DNA samples from the captured turtles, and gained an excellent contact in Charlie Bethell who is a force in marine conservation in Andros.

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CHARTS

All charts are used with permission of Lewis Offshore Ltd, producers of the Explorer Charts. The charts displayed on the blog are not to be used for navigation.

NEWS
Below are entries which document the current activities of the program and questions and comments from students and faculty in the out-islands. We invite you to participate.

CORE PERSONNEL

Stephen Connett

Family Island

Research and Education

Barbara Crouchley

Family Island

Research and Education

Portia Sweeting

Director of Education

Bahamas National Trust

ASSOCIATES

Mark Keasler with Bahamian boa

Philippa Papadopoulo with Spanish Wells students

BOATS

FOXY LADY

38' lobsterboat designed by Spencer Lincoln

and built by Covey Island Boatworks

in Nova Scotia

19' speed boat built by

Spanish Wells Marine

RESEARCH

Sea turtle research is conducted in cooperation with the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research at the University of Florida. Karen Bjorndal is the Director and Alan Bolten the Assistant Director. Stephen and Barbara are included on the ACCSR’s research permit issued by the Bahamas Department of Marine Resources.

Mission of the ACCSR program in The Bahamas:
(1) survey the archipelago for foraging and nesting populations of sea turtles
(2) establish long-term demographic studies of sea turtles
(3) use a variety of tagging and molecular techniques to answer the questions: where do turtles in The Bahamas come from, how long do they stay, and where do they go when they leave The Bahamas?

SURVEYS:
We make GPS track surveys of turtle feeding habitats throughout the Bahamas to assess populations. Repeated surveys help us establish long-term demographic data.

survey tracks of Robin Creek and Joe Sound Creek

(chart used with permission of Lewis Offshore Ltd)

TAG AND RECAPTURE DATA:
Over the past 30 years the ACCSR and Stephen Connett have tagged thousands of sea turtles in their feeding habitats in the Bahamas. Hundreds of these turtles have been recaptured locally and throughout the Caribbean region. Bjorndal and Bolten have published much of these data and the results of their research in Great Inagua. Go to the ACCSR website (http://accstr.ufl.edu/) and click on “Conservation Strategy for Sea Turtles in the Bahamas” to download publications.

arrows indicate green turtle migrations from Great Inagua

DNA ANALYSIS:
Over the years turtle biologists have taken blood and tissue samples from thousands of turtles in the north and south Atlantic. Mitochondria DNA analysis and tag and recapture studies have shown that female turtles nesting on the same beaches can be identified as distinct DNA groups. Scientists have also proven that a very high percentage of nesting females return to their natal beaches to nest.
Analysis of DNA samples taken from Union Creek in Great Inagua have shown that the majority of turtles feeding in Union Creek were born in the Caribbean, Florida, and South America.

chart show where green turtles in Great Inagua were born