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NEWS FROM THAILAND |
9 April 2008 |
Volunteer's siesta photo by R.Shepherd |
Even though the rainy and stormy weather did not help the monitoring team in the last month, few days ago the last nest hatched successfully. The beach were monitored until the 8th of April and the observation form the rock continued. The team left the island of Phra Thong on the 9th April. The are tired by happy about the season and full of enthusiasm for the results obtained. We will provide more details later…. Thank you to all of you for having followed us during the season.
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March 2008
TURTLE Drawing competition with school children |
Oservation from the rock photo by R.Shepherd |
We have selected the winner for the drawing competition. It was done under the theme “The Happy Home of Sea Turtle”. The competition divided into two age group, grade1-4, and grade 5-9. We have both the drawing for Lion’s village and Tha Pae Yoi. We also decided to put the drawing up the villagers and invite them to vote. The winner will won the Lion’s popular vote not the competition because we didn’t invite villagers from Tha Pae Yoi to join. There were 34 people came to vote. We think that this could be a nice way to get them involve in our activity. In total we have four winners, one for each age group. The winner of the competition will have the drawing printed on T-shirts, which will be distributed in the village.
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2 February 2008 |
Volunteers team in February 2008 photo by R.Shepherd |
The early morning of 2 February started just as any other day as Naucrates researchers patrolled the white sandy beaches of Koh Phra Thong, Thailand in search of sea turtle nesting activity. With two olive ridley (L. olivacea) females days overdue, the anticipation of discovering a sea turtle nest was enough to make anyones palms sweat. After four kilometers of hiking through loose sand in the morning sun, our eyes instantly became affixed with intrigue…what was lying on the beach ahead? As we approached the breaking waves of the Andaman Sea, our hopeful temperment diminished as we began to realize what we observed: on its back was a fully grown, lifeless olive ridley. After further examination, our worst fears became true…the turtle was full of eggs! Although she was following her instincts just as turtles have done for millions of years, something prevented her from finishing her duty of laying her nest. All of that energy…wasted! The fresh circular wound on the side of her body suggests an unnatural death…unfortunately we will never know what really happened to this beautiful creature. We buried the mother turtle along with her eggs under a lonely yet magnificant tree…her memory remains with us as we pass every morning in search of new life.
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31 January 2008
THAILAND |
The 11TH SEASON HAS STARTED WITH GREAT SUCCESS Driinnnnnn……!!!!
It is the beginning of January, migration time for Naucrates team….as it happened in the last 11 year, Naucrates group fly to Thailand to conduct the conservation project at Phra Thong island.
As most of you already know, the project is now based in the Lion Village (or locally called Pak Choke). On the 4th of January 2008 we arrived on the island and we settle in the new community. Nok and Mion have organized the dining “room” for the team, where nice Thai food is served every day. Tu has rented her house to Naucrates, where an office (or field station) has been set up and where the assistants can stay for the all period of the project.
Volunteers are staying in different rooms rented in different local people houses. It is a sort of homestay. |
photo by M.Valatanen
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The morning of the 5th January, we have been woken up by an exiting phone call from Goa, a local person from Pak Choke village that knows us since 11 years and that has built a Thai camping site on the beach. “ he said…there is a nest on the beach, it is fresh…come to check”. As we are used to do since the beginning of the project in 1996, we start calling each other organizing ourself …..Monica, Claudio, Lory, Alex, Ampon, Luna, Pipap and Ning…. jumped on Lory’s jeep and drove to the beach. There was a fresh olive ridley track! After few minutes of searching in the sand, we found the eggs: the first fresh eggs of 2008 season for the project! On the 10th of January the team composed by assistants and volunteers was complete and day by day tracks and nests were found. Up today, we count 3 olive ridley nests and 3 green turtle nests. HEY, for all of you that is not familiar with Phra Thong numbers, this is a great number! In fact, we have not recorded such a high number of nests since years. Training on how to identify tracks and nests and how to record data on the field was conducted to a local person, in charge of monitoring the south part of the beach and to ReefCheck team is often monitoring the North side of Ko Ra.
In January Pipap and Ning worked with us for 2 weeks. They continued the survey with fishermen that they started last season with the aim of evaluating the effect of artisanal fisheries on sea turtles. They went on board with many fishermen, catching squids. January was also a good season for the Mangrove Restoration Project, in fact Claudio together with members of the Mangrove Action Project has visited the study area and found that new trees (planted after the tsunami) are growing well and they look very healthy. During MAP visit at the project, children from Ban Talee Nok (an adjacent community) were invited to perform their puppet show related with mangrove conservation and other environmental issues. In parallel with the conservation field work, Naucrates team started to work in the local school of the village where there are 11 children. Nook, Naucrates teacher-translator, planned English lesson every day in the school and some environmental education activities for them. As local villagers showed an interest to attend English lesson, Nook and the volunteers are teaching twice a week in the village.
A lot of things happened, we will send you an update soon, to keep you informed on what happen on the island
Regards,
Naucrates team
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