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Posted - Aug 28 2007 : 2:52:23 PM
Sniffing for sea turtles
Golden retriever is expert in finding nests on Hilton Head Island
By PETER FROST - pfrost@islandpacket.com
Makai, a 9-month-old golden retriever, loves to fetch sticks, eat doggie treats and ride on the back of four-wheelers.
She's also an expert at finding turtle eggs.
The puppy prodigy, whose full name is Keiki Makai, or "child by the
ocean" in Hawaiian, is the newest addition to Hilton Head Island's Sea
Turtle Protection Project and the first dog known to be part of a turtle
protection team.
Her owner, project worker Amber Hester, trained the dog to find turtle
eggs buried as much as a foot below the sand on Hilton Head's beaches.
Makai hasn't disappointed.
In 10 early morning trips this summer, Makai found every nest within a
foot of the six-inch chamber where a mother loggerhead turtle laid her
eggs.
When project workers patrolling the beaches aboard all-terrain vehicles
spot turtle tracks, they issue orders: "Find it, Makai! Find it, find
it!" The dog jumps out of the back of the four-wheeler, immediately
presses her nose to the ground and makes two swipes of a paw once she's
identified a nest.
Workers reward Makai with a treat and probe the area with their hands to
find the loose sand the turtle used to cover up her eggs.
"This will be a breakthrough in sea turtle technology," said Carlos
Chacon, manager of the program. "It can save a lot of time and work ...
Plus, it will also save a lot of broken eggs."
Spotting the turtle's tracks from the water to the dunes is easy - the
300-pound behemoths displace a fair amount of sand on their journey up
the beach.
But finding the nest is a different story. The nests, shaped like an
upside-down light bulb, are only about 6 inches wide at the top. Each is
filled with about 100 turtle eggs, which are about the same size and
color of pingpong balls.
To obscure the nest and protect it from predators, mother turtles clear
an area roughly 6 feet in diameter and deposit their eggs about a foot
under the surface.
Using long slender probes, project workers search for "soft spots" in
the sand that indicate where a hole was recently filled.
Sometimes, it can take nearly an hour - and during the process, workers
occasionally break eggs.
By using Makai in the place of the probes, workers can identify nests
within a minute and reduce the chances of piercing an egg.
"Because only about three of 100 baby turtles make it to their third
day, we need to give all of the eggs a good chance to hatch," Hester
said.
Finding and marking nests is a crucial part of the project's mission,
Chacon said. Workers mark nests with wooden stakes to prevent them from
being stepped on or disturbed. Frequently, they have to move nests
farther from shore to protect them from high tides and storm surges.
Dog trainer Jeff Lauver began helping Hester train Makai when the dog
was about 4 months old. They used infertile sea turtle eggs from last
year and buried them around Hester's yard.
Not long after, Makai was ready for the field.
"It seemed odd at first," Lauver said, "but it just goes to show that
you can train dogs to do just about anything."
Frost is a reporter for The (Hilton Head) Island Packet, a McClatchy
newspaper.
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/151544.html
The View From My Boots: www.bovesboots.blogspot.com
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