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San Nicolas family of Inarajan helps save baby turtles
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by Mindy Aguon, KUAM News
Thursday, January 15, 2004
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One family in Inarajan has helped rescue more than 100 newly-hatched baby turtles. With their help, local biologists say the turtles will have a chance to survive in their natural habitat. This isn't the normal season for turtle hatchlings but the efforts of one family helped protect a threatened species.
More than 100 baby green sea turtles were released back into the beautiful waters of Inarajan Wednesday night. Norma San Nicolas says a normally quiet night at their home looking at the ocean across the street turned into a rescue mission. “We were just sitting out here, me and my husband and his cousins, and all I saw was a little turtle heading to my feet. I asked my husband to get it and put it into the aquarium but he said no, because we're gonna have fine for it,” she explained.
It was just a matter of time before they realized they had an entire yard full of newly-hatched turtles. “We just started walking out in the yard and we found more and then we walked out to the beach and we found more out there,” she added.
Norma says her husband called the Guam Police Department and the Department of Agriculture to assist the little creatures back to the open waters. They were trying to save as many turtles as they could by getting them off the road and placing them into a large plastic container.
Department of Agriculture fisheries supervisor Trina Leberer says the rescue wasn't easy though, as the baby turtles kept turning back to the land. Leberer says the green sea turtles' first instinct is to find light, but because the creatures hatch near the water, they usually see the moonlight reflecting off the water. Leberer says Wednesday night the turtles instead saw a bright streetlight which attracted them to the San Nicolas home.
Said Norma of this peculiar behavior, “That's the first time I've ever seen it!” Her father-in-law Eddie San Nicolas says biologists were trying to locate the turtles’ nest, but all they could find last night were holes along the beach. He says officials had to make several attempts to put the turtles back into the open ocean. “I thought they were gonna keep them, but they said we have to release it,” he said.
During our visit to the San Nicolas beach and home today, Eddie found another turtle stuck near his water meter. It was evident the turtle was ready to join the others in the ocean as we placed it on the sand and he quickly made his way against the current. While the turtle may only be a day or two old, his adventure on land hasn't affected his natural instincts, as was seen when he hit the water. Leberer says this is not the normal season for green sea turtles.
The normal nesting time is between April and August with a 60-day gestation period. The Department of Agriculture will send of the non-hatched eggs to the Southwest Fisheries Center for Research. The others already released now have a chance of survival, all thanks to the San Nicolas family.
Author’s note: there are stiff criminal penalties for those caught in possession of the threatened green sea turtles.
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