Turtle season

Highlights, Mysteries & First Times – What happened in 2024

It has been few weeks only since we shut down the 2024/25 MEMANTA season. So it is time to tell you guys about all the amazing things that have happened.
I can certainly say that this has been our most successful and most expensive sea turtle season so far. Details will follow shortly…

Buckle up, grab your drink, lean back and keep reading… 📖

A new Hatchery… again

Once again it was time to expand our hatchery, even if it was just for a mere 2 metres. But we re-did the whole thing:
(1) We buried a black plastic fence around 40 cm deep all around the hatchery which is sturdier and more durable than the mesh,
(2) We renewed all the posts and even the wooden door as termites and rain had basically destroyed the former ones.

The new hatchery was built in mid July with the help of our first interns, Kim and Fiona from Luxembourg! These were our first guests ever from this small country and they were truly wonderful people who enjoyed themselves very much I think 🙂

Continue reading “Highlights, Mysteries & First Times – What happened in 2024”
Turtle season

Challenges, Changes and Chances – What happened in 2023

Simply the fact that it’s 10 pm and I’m sitting at home in front of my laptop instead of working in the hatchery or walking on the beach shows that the sea turtle nesting season has come to an end – again.

Now it’s time to show you what we saw, felt, did and experienced over the past few months – in pictures who hopefully speak a thousand words each.

As I covered the months January and February in my previous blog post already, I’ll start with…

march

Let’s start our post with some doggo cuteness overload. We received a new family member: Gulasch! He was so shy, calm and sweet at the beginning. A little baby to melt your heart. Who would have thought he would turn into the freaking crazy daredevil he is today…

Another great thing that happened in March was our volcano trip – halfway up the San Cristobal volcano (Nicaraguas highest volcano btw) and then up the Casitas volcano where we were rewarded with spectacular views. This was our well-deserved mini adventure holiday before I had my surgery in April.

Continue reading “Challenges, Changes and Chances – What happened in 2023”
Turtle season

A sea turtle season to remember

A lot has happened since the last blog post. And I mean A LOT. So where to begin? I’ll probably try to tell our story about the 2022 turtle nesting season in chronological order, even though I might forget a few things.

Let’s start with July!

Earlier in June, Melvin and me decided to double the size of the hatchery as we prepared ourselves for Hawksbill nesting season (this species starts to nest sooner than all the others). Remember: The Eastern Pacific Hawksbill turtle prefers to nest on the small beaches in the Padre Ramos estuary which we don’t patrol ourselves, so we only buy a small portion of the nests while the big majority goes to the other turtle project called “Casa Carey” – those guys have been around for several years already and specialize on the protection of the critically endangered Hawksbills.
Our very first Hawksbill nest was delivered to us on the 2nd of July, and altogether we incubated 17 nests of this species.

Also in July, we received our first intern for the season: Tammy from China who is studying biology in the UK and found out about us through her university. Tammy was super passionate about nature photography and birds, while she had never worked with turtles before. Having lived in big cities for all her life, she was astonished by the clear night sky full of (shooting) stars, and a little bit frightened by all the critters and mammals living on our property. With Tammy, we started going on night patrols and also had some very first encounters with our beloved Olive Ridley turtle – we buried the first nest of this species on the 29th of July.

Continue reading “A sea turtle season to remember”
Our new MEMANTA sign!
Off season

Let the fun begin!

Slowly MEMANTA is turning into what we’ve imagined it to be over all these years. With more and more interns coming from overseas, the occasional tourist stopping by and exciting projects being realized, we are growing and improving every single month.
Here’s all the updates you need to know!

THE SEA TURTLE SEASON CAME TO AN END

Even though a new year had begun, we still had quite a few nests in the hatchery – both from Olive Ridleys and Green Turtles. Fortunately there were some helping hands around, first the Berg family and then Lennard, a brave soul from northern Germany who decided to do a 3-month internship in the field of geography! Even though Lennard’s focus wasn’t sea turtles, he got trained in nest exhumations and releases. We didn’t go on any more night patrols, but that didn’t stop him from witnessing one legendary nesting event right in front of our property! He saw the turtle dragging herself out of the water, totally unexpected, in the middle of the day, when he was having his midday beach break. What a lucky guy! He immediately called us and we collected the eggs together – it was the last nest of the 2021/2022 season!

Continue reading “Let the fun begin!”