Once again as I write this I have to apologize for how quiet things have been on the Cousin Island Blog over the last month or so. I guess the only good thing about that is it means things have been very busy on the turtle side of things on Cousin and at Nature Seychelles. Actually just before I started writing this installment to the blog I spoke to Eric, the Conservation Officer on Cousin, who was sitting on the beach watching a female Hawksbill turtle dig a nesting chamber to lay what will be the islands 486th nest for the season. Because at the moment she is still digging Eric has not been able to check the numbers on the tags we use to individually mark each turtle but he was able to tell me the numbers from the turtle that laid nest number 485. That particular individual has already visited Cousin island once this nesting season and she laid a clutch of eggs then as well, nest number 253. She may have visited the island between these 2 nests and the wardens do their best to detect each turtle that emerges onto the beach but that can be hard and it often depends slightly on the time they emerge from the water.

The wardens are quite lucky with the Hawksbill turtles on Cousin as they all emerge to lay their eggs during day light with over 90% of the turtles nesting between 6:00 am and 7:00 pm. In most other turtle nesting areas in the world the turtles only emerge to lay their eggs under the cover of darkness.

The turtle that laid nest number 485 has visited Cousin a number of times before. Infact this nesting season is the fourth nesting season she has been seen and identified on Cousin. The only way to know that is because each nesting turtle that is seen is individually tagged with numbers that identify her. Without the tags we would not know where or when the turtle last nested. From the other information we collect from each turtle we can also see that when she nests on Cousin she always nests on Anse Vacoa - the most popular beach for turtles nesting on Cousin, or very close to it on the nearest beach - Main Beach.

From the tags I can also tell you that the first time this turtle was seen was on Cousin. That does not mean she does not lay on other islands nearby. In fact a number of the turtles tagged on Cousin use the beaches on the neighboring island of Cousine to lay eggs and some of the turtles originally tagged on Cousine also visit the beaches of Cousin. The wardens on Cousin have been able to identify turtles originally tagged on the islands of Cousine, Aride and Curieuse as using the beaches on Cousin. All of this information can only be obtained thanks to the 7 patrols a day conducted by the wardens and volunteers and the intensive monitoring program that they are a very important part of. This kind of information can then be used to ensure the future conservation of Hawksbill turtles in Seychelles waters.

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