DLNR-DFW Sea Turtle Nearshore Surveys

Nearshore capture/tagging surveys draw crowd of observers at Fishing Base boat ramp

It was a bit choppy out on the water today so DLNR-DFW Sea Turtle Program staff decided to measure. tag, and release the turtles captured during morning reef dives in the protected waters at Fishing Base boat ramp, Saipan. Our turtles caught the eyes of several tour guides pulling their boats out of the water and visiting students from Brigham Young University, Honolulu HI. The students, Bobbie Hanohano and Kalie Johnson were in town to present their research on crabs at a conference hosted the past few days on Saipan. Kalie is studying Pea crabs that live as parasites on sea cucumbers while Bobbie is researching Xanthid crabs. They just happened to be at the boat ramp after taking photos on the reef for their BYU professor's field guide when they bumped into our team tagging sea turtles. They were happy to help us release a few juvenile green turtles back into the water and ended up learning about CNMI sea turtles in the process. The Sea Turtle Program staff would like to thank everyone who assisted us today!

Tanapag Elementary & Montessori Schools Education Outreach

Reaching Out to Local Schools

On November 22, 2011 CNMI DLNR Sea Turtle Program staff taught Bright Star Montessori School students how to make a sea turtle out of paper plates. Usually at this time of year turkeys are on everyone's minds but for these creative and crafty students, sea turtles were the star of the show! They learned about the different body parts that make up the turtle while they had fun decorating their plates. All 4-5th grade classes at Tanapag Elementary School participated in a presentation provided by DLNR-DFW Sea Turtle Program staff on November 15th. Many students had great questions, one that even stumped turtle staff was how many bones do sea turtles have in their body? Well, we have since found out that just the inner portion of the sea turtles shell is made up of 60 bones (which includes the backbone and the ribs)! We want to thank Tanapag Elementary students for keeping us on our toes...