Turtle Camp

Turtle Camp Activities!

Throughout the year we do certain activities to help preserve the turtles and specially the one's that come to Akumal every year.

• Monitoring the Juvenile Green Turtles

When: It began on 2004 and it's for 3 or 4 days every two or three months.

What do we do: Measure the juvenile green turtles of Akumal Bay (shell lenght and width), check if they're tagged (if not, we tag them), and take a small blood sample from each turtle.

This information is later analized and gives us the health state of the turtles and the quality of the water in Akumal Bay.

• Nesting Season Turtle Walks

When: It starts the last days of April and ends the last days of November. The Turtle walks during the night start on May 1 and end the last days of September.

What we do: Monitor the turtle nests and hatchlings. Patrol the 4 beaches of Akumal checking for turtle nests and marking them with a sign post so that the tourists and CEA staff know that there's a nest. We also measure the green and loggerhead turtles coming up to nest and check if they are tagged (if not we tag them). During hatchling season, we supervise that they get to the water safely.
Hatchling Season: Ends of June till November.

• Upload previously gathered info

When: Every day

What we do: All of the above helps us create a data base with information of every turtle coming to nest in Akumal. This way we know which turtle is which and monitor their nests (we know exactly when they're going to hatch) and their health. Every day we upload the information we gather during the turtle walk to a data base in a computer.

• Yearly Report to SEMARNAT
  

With all the information gathered, we make a report of our findings and work to SEMARNAT so that they renew our permit as a Turtle Camp.

• Workshops and Meetings

As turtle volunteers and coordinators, we have a responsibility with ourselves to be educated and trained so we usually attend turtle workshops and meetings.

Every month we have a special meeting at the Comite Estatal de Proteccion Conservacion e Investigacion y Manejo de Tortugas Marinas en Quintana Roo where we analyzed what has been done in the past month and attend important issues.

• Educational Programs & Beach Clean-Ups
  

We give turtle talks to the tourists and kids of the local community. We believe that through education we can help maintain our environment healthy so we create awareness in them and make them understand that with their help we can protect the environement and the turtles coming to Akumal. We do puppet shows for the kids, beach clean-ups (pick the trash from the beach and later recycle it), tourist talks.