Waiting for Daisy

The turtle icon on the main map shows the location of the Grande Riviere nesting beach. The image on the left shows the last location information we received from Daisy’s satellite tag. The image on the right shows Daisy’s whole satellite track to date.

11 April 2019
11:35 p.m.

All night, we have been concentrating on Daisy, who was the first turtle we satellite tagged last summer. She is set to nest tonight—we think—at Grand Riviere. Grand Riviere is one of the major nesting beaches for leatherbacks in Trinidad. It’s located on the country’s north coast about two hours’ drive from Matura Beach (where we will be during our Field Trip).

I’ve only been to Grand Riviere once. It is different from Matura. Smaller (it’s only about a kilometre long) and at the height of the nesting season, so densely packed with leatherbacks that the turtles inadvertently dig up one another’s nests as they try to find a place to lay their eggs. The night I was there, we found a leatherback with the sword of a marlin piercing through its shell. (You can read about it here. It remains one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in all of my years working with leatherbacks.)

Sarah at Grande Riviere nesting beach

And that means that Kyle and Sarah from Nature Seekers have driven up from Matura to wait for Daisy. They want to see how she is doing and to make sure her satellite tag is still attached properly. They are also hoping to attach a new, small data logger as part of a project they are doing with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to gather information about what turtles do in the ten “inter-nesting” days between laying one nest and another.

As I type, Mike from DFO is in Nova Scotia sending information on Daisy’s movements to Kyle and Sarah. He is watching as she gets closer and closer and wondering if she’ll haul up on the beach or not tonight. The odds are good, but you never know for sure.  Meanwhile, Kyle and Sarah are in Trinidad, watching and walking and checking every turtle they find to make sure they don’t miss her.

There is so much waiting that happens in sea turtle field work. Waiting to see if the data updates in real time. (Inevitably—of course—there’s a glitch just when you really need the program not to glitch.) Waiting as the stars come out and the waves crash to see if the dark mass that appears, like magic, in the roiling surf is her.

Kyle at Grande Riviere nesting beach

Sometimes I find this irritating. I like when a story unfolds with assurance. When you have a little more control over it.

It’s nights like tonight—when we wonder whether Kyle and Sarah will have driven all that way and will have stayed out walking the length of Grand Riviere beach into the early hours of the morning without finding Daisy—or whether Daisy will not nest tonight but tomorrow—when I’m reminded of how critical patience is to science. The ability to keep company with the story as it reveals itself. With the turtles on the beach. With the idea of a project that may or may not work. With your friends—waiting with you—a hemisphere away.

12 April 2019
9:30 a.m.

No Daisy. Long night. And now worry. Her transmissions stopped. Mike hasn’t heard from her satellite tag in over 12 hours. No signals to indicate that she was up on the beach and we missed her. No signals to indicate she’s off swimming somewhere, waiting just a little longer until she comes ashore.

So a different kind of watching today. Hoping she’ll come back online. Hoping she didn’t get accidentally caught in the fishing gear off the coast.