Untitled Document

MAUI GIRL TRACK + ARTICLE

Turtle 5690 returns to Lahaina to nest

By HARRY EAGAR

Staff Writer

LAHAINA - After a two-year absence, Turtle 5690 has returned to a
quiet but warm welcome.
Four times this summer, she crawled out of the ocean near Lahaina
Shores, laboriously dug a
deep hole in the sand, and deposited scores of eggs.

On the last occasion, the night of Wednesday-Thursday, researchers
fitted a satellite transmitter
to her shell, so now they may be able to figure out where she goes.

Ursula Keuper-Bennett, who assisted with the three-hour tagging, said
the experience was
"indescribable." But she tried to describe it:

"Female turtles dig in the sand with their front flippers and then
hurl that sand past their
carapaces to the rear where the nest is. The flipper hurl is so
forceful there's a WHAACK!
sound as each flipper strikes the shell!"

Only the highlights of Turtle 5690's life are known, but she's famous
already. In 2000, she
became the first confirmed green sea turtle to nest on Maui in modern times.

Following the urge of her kind for millions of years, she returned
again and again to the same
little patch of beach, to excavate a hole - usually after several
false starts - for her eggs.

This May, she returned to almost exactly the same spot, and then
every 14-16 days, "like
clockwork" in the words of George Balazs, came again.

Balazs, leader of the Turtle Research Program of the National Marine
Fisheries Service in
Hawaii, does not expect she will make a fifth nest. The first
hatchlings from the first nest can be
expected to start emerging late this month.

That adds hope for the future of the threatened turtles, who do
almost all their nesting on French
Frigate Shoals, where 5690 got her start.

In 1980, Balazs collected scores of baby turtles, who were reared on
fish and squid at Sea Life
Park until they were dinner-plate size.

They were tagged, and then the "headstarted" turtles were released
around the state. Turtle 5690
was set loose on Sept. 11, 1981, at Richardson Ocean Center at Hilo.
She weighed 2.7 kilograms
(6 pounds) and measured 22 centimeters (9 inches) in straight carapace length.

Not one of those turtles was seen again until summer 2000, when 5690
was identified by a
confirmed tag resighting while nesting right next to a high-rise
tourist hotel in Lahaina. (She
probably was the turtle who nested earlier that year in Kihei, but
nobody saw her then.)

The nest at Kihei contained 94 eggs, of which only 14 percent
resulted in hatchlings, possibly
due to very dry sand conditions, according to a report by Balazs and others.

The three nests at Lahaina contained 76, 76 and 88 eggs,
respectively, of which 63 percent, 57
percent and 55 percent resulted in live hatchlings.

Mary Jane Grady, who spotted the tag, estimated then that 5690
weighed 200 pounds and had a
carapace length of 85-90 cm.

If so, her rate of growth had exceeded that of naturally occurring
green turtles tagged and
recaptured throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

It could have been an underestimate, because Wednesday night the
friends of 5690 got an exact
measurement of 99 cm. (3 feet, 3¢ inches).

Turtle 5690 returned to Lahaina on May 25, June 10 and June 26.

Word got around, but her visits were not publicized. Lights and other
activity could interfere with
nesting, although last week, after her work was done, 5690 proved
"very mellow" when she was
corralled in a carpet-lined plywood cage for tagging.

Balazs says he is not concerned, now that she has probably finished
coming ashore, that humans
will interfere with the rest of the process.

For one thing, the babies come out irregularly, at 55 to 70 days from
laying, depending where
they are in the nest, and they are hard to catch.

For another, everybody around has been "totally understanding,
totally protective" of their honu.

"I'm really impressed, with the tourists and with the local people,"
says Balazs.

After 5690 finished her work last week, she was herded into the
plywood pen, where a team of
seven people first put rubber on her back.

A one-pound transmitter with a little antenna was stuck to that, and
the whole arrangement was
secured with layers of fiberglass.

This should allow Balazs to follow 5690 on her journey, be it great
or little, now that she no
longer needs to be near land for a long time.

The transmitters often work for six to seven months, sometimes
longer. Eventually, as the shell
grows and sloughs off its surface, the fiberglass loses contact and
the transmitter falls off.

Putting a transmitter on even a tolerant turtle is a job, and
everyone was tired after working all
day, so they told stories to keep themselves awake.

Glynnis Nakai of the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Reserve and Skippy
Hau of the Department
of Land and Natural Resources will keep an eye on the four nests.
When all activity has ceased,
they will carefully dig them out.

They will expect to find a few stragglers, caught in roots or
otherwise not quite making it on their
own. They will help them into the ocean and then collect eggshell
samples for genetic analysis.

Two decades ago, 5690 was released as part of a test to see if
headstarting could help rebuild
turtle populations.

In their report, Balazs and the team wrote, "It should be noted that
the amazing part of this story
is not that a headstarted green turtle successfully nested in the wild.

"There's no reason to believe one wouldn't, if it survived to grow to
maturity and eventually
mated. What is amazing is that a single flipper tag applied to such a
small turtle stayed on for so
many years making it possible for the success of 5690 to become known."

And maybe that the development of Lahaina over the past two decades
didn't seem to make much
of an impression on 5690. But then, green sea turtles are accustomed
to taking the long view.