Karumbé
Sorry I haven´t blogged here in quite some time…haven´t had my computer with me and just now feeling the urge to blog again.
I spent the month of January in the north of Uruguay in a small town called La Coronilla (20 kms south of Brazil), volunteering with a non profit organization called Karumbé, which means turtle in Guarani, the indigineous people of southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Northern Argentina. Karumbé consists of scientists, conservationists, grad students, and other volunteers. We stayed in a precarious shelter that could be described as a shed or a hut, but it helped make the experience, including the mosquitoes. I have never killed so many mosquitoes in my life or slept with only my nose exposed to survive them. All (sometimes 20 of us) shared the same bathroom and shower in our outhouse. We had a dry erase board with the day´s activities and all of the daily duties were on a rotation basis: cooking breakfast-lunch-dinner, cleaning the bathroom, etc. The time there seemed longer than it was because the days were long and we did a good bit each day. Not longer in a dragging sense but in a sense of more accomplishment. The night sky at our base was simply amazing. Very far from any major cities the light pollution is at a minimum and our town had a population of only 100ish. The moon would go down in the early night making it possible to see three universes pretty distinctly. Couldnt identify much since my knowledge is limited and itñs the southern hemisphere.
The turtles that we worked with were for the most part, juvenile ´tortugas verdes´-green turtles from about 3 to 8 years old. 70 percent of these turtles are born on Acension Island in the Atlantic between Africa and South America. The rest are born on islands off the coast of Brazil, yes that is a very large area. They come to the waters of Uruguay for feeding during the main stages of their growth.
Some of the things we would do at Karumbé were captures, sun up to sun down in the water with a net where we would try to catch as many turtles as we could. It is important to spot the turtle as soon as it is caught so it doesnñt drown. When they get caught, they expend so much energy they can drown in minutes. When they are feeding or resting they can stay underwater for hours. We caught 18 turtles one day at Carlitos playa which was a record. We keep the turtles in boxes until the end of the capture so we donñt catch the same ones again and throughout the day we examined and took records of all the turtles we caught. Weight, measurements, cleaned the turtles from barnacles, cleaned and treated wounds most times caused from the turtle bumping into rocks, and determined the general health of the turtle. We would also cut a very small piece of skin from their back leg and take a blood sample where they would be examined later. If the turtle is healthy, they are tagged on their front left and right flippers. We caught some that had been tagged before. There is an entire network where they can see where the turtle had been tagged, obtain records at that time of the turtle, track the movement, and more. Karumbé has also used tags with chips that theyçve used to track adults migrating from South Africa to Uruguay.
Other days we would do census´s involving 18 to 20km walks along the beach to see what animals have washed up. We would take pictures, measure, and mark the animal. We found more than you would think, from various birds, to dolphins, sea wolves, rays, to of course turtles such as the very large cabrezones and siette quillas or leatherbacks. Let´s just say I broke my Haviaianas sandals on these walks. The censo´s would start in either Brazil at the border town of Chuy and end in La Coronilla where our base was…or we would go from La Coronilla to the south to a town called Punta del Diablo. Punta del Diablo is a bohemian beach town with dirt roads and great beaches. I even ran into my friend Sonia from Argentina there. Quite a few Argentines make there way to this town for a beach vacation, a lot of the camping at the National Park Santa Teresa. I did both censuses and the scenery is quite different on each stretch. One time we did a census and camped behind a sand dune then did a capture the next day.
Most of the times are captures at places where there weren´t many people, but the people passing by would get an information session on what we were doing, as most people were curious.
On weekends, we would go the National Park Santa Teresa and set up the informational signs, put a healthy turtle in the pool, and pick up trash on the beach while promoting others to as well. At the end of the day we would release the turtle to the ocean. The day I did the ´liberacion´ we had more than 150 people gathered to watch.
As for the sick turtles, a lot of times they are guessing what is wrong with them. Whenever a beached turtle was found, you know there is something wrong. You can tell by the way the turtle floats if it´s healthy or not. We had up to 6 turtles in pools at the base. We would give antibiotics, feed the turtles blended algae through a tube if they weren´t eating, and monitor their progress. Some couldn´t even keep their head out of the water on their own, so we would put them in floats. If a turtle died, we would dissect it. Talk about a lot of flies and horrible smells. But this is necessary to try to determine the cause of death. In the cases I saw, the stomaches were full of trash from cigarrette butts, bottle caps, plastic in general. They confuse plastic in the water as jellyfish, a staple in their diet. It´s hard for them to pass plastics. They try giving them vaseline mixed with algae to help pass the plastic, with mixed results.
The people at Karumbé are from all over the world. Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Spain, England, and the US. We all spoke in spanish, the mother tongue of the project since it´s in Uruguay, though in it´s many variations and accents. Gus, one of the coordinators, is Brasilian so we learned his Portuguese-Castellano which was interesting and soon useful in Brasil.
It´s important to learn more about sea turtles as they are endangered and there is much to be learned about them still. Human development is a major threat, from the plastics in the water, to development on beaches (after hatching they find the water by light, and hotels on the beach disorient the hatchlings).
