AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Helping Hatching Sea Turtles

Hello,

I am a student from the US who will be working with the Belize Fisheries Department. I am very interested in studying turtles. Any info or contacts on how I could aid hatching sea turtles would be greatly appreciated. In particular, I am trying to reach Dr. Bron Eastwood and Maarten Hoffmann because of their amazing article regarding this Sea Turtles on Ambergris Caye.

Thank you,

Brian Bartholomew

Brian,
Most of the trutles will lay their eggs on the Robles area beach.We saw 4 nest areas when we were up there in May.Two nest were very fresh as we saw the turtle tracks to and from the nest.
There is a guy that lives up in that area by the name of Greg Smith, local turtle dude.But I do not know how to contact him.You might try the Hol Chan Marine Reserve ask for Ismael or Avriol.They will point you in the correct direction.
Bron can be found at Saga and Maarten should be found at Portofino Resort.
Good Luck,

[This message has been edited by SEAWINGS (edited 07-16-2002).]

Don't believe Hoffman would be around Portofino any more.

--Lan Sluder

Lan, where did he end up?

Believe Maarten and Bron went back to UK for awhile. They have temp vets for SAGA.

about 5 years ago we were at Porta Morelas
now the maya riveria and a guide took us to a hatchery at night.We saw 5 turtles come up and lay the eggs, then the helpers waited for the turtles to go back into the water and they dug up the eggs(they let my children help) and carried them back ,placed them under the sand in cages (like tomato cage )labled with the number and date. We got some great pictures!! . I am tring to look up the name we have it somewhere. My kids said this was the best part of the 2 week trip.

On our visit to AC in June, we visited Captain Morgan's where we were told that some turtle eggs had been laid on the beach. Today I found an article in the San Pedro Sun telling about these eggs hatching. Thought you might be interested.
http://www.sanpedrosun.net/02-273.html