Happy Mother’s Day!

From all of us here at LMC and The Leatherback Project, we want to wish all the (human and turtle!) moms out there a Happy Mother’s Day!  We saw a whole lot of loggerhead mamas out on the beach last night, plus one leatherback mama.

Our lone leatherback of the night was named Hazel.  Hazel was first encountered by LMC biologists back in 2011, when she nested on Juno Beach twice.  Hazel was already tagged when our crew first encountered her five years ago and we were able to identify her by her unique PIT tag number.  The turtle has grown since we last encountered her, and we were excited that she nested within miles of her previous nesting spots from 2011!

Unfortunately, we also found a large Mother’s Day balloon (pictured below) washed up on the beach while on survey last night.  Sea turtles often mistake balloons for jellyfish and eat them, which can make them very sick.  You can help by picking up balloons, plastic, and any other garbage you may find on the beach.  Every little bit helps, so save a turtle mama (or papa, or hatchling) by picking up trash!