Tonight marks the second night in a row that we’ve had “double trouble” from the leatherbacks — two leatherbacks per night, that is!
On Monday night, our big girl Nerita returned to nest on Juno. If you’ve forgotten how big she is, she was just under 6 feet long! She is still the largest turtle that any of us have ever seen. There was no mistaking her huge shadow up on the beach and as soon as our biologists saw her, we remembered exactly who she was. Just after researchers encountered Nerita, we spotted another tagged leatherback. This turtle was tagged by colleagues on a nearby beach, so we will reach out to them for a synopsis of the turtle’s history.
Last night, the first turtle to be spotted was a new nester that was not yet tagged. We named her “JJ” and gave her some shiny new flipper tags as well as a PIT tag. She was about 144 cm long and nested just south of the Juno Beach Pier. The second turtle of the night was a previously tagged turtle named Ruby. Ruby was only spotted once before on Juno Beach back in 2010. She has grown since LMC researchers last encountered her and she looked healthy.
What will tomorrow night have in store for us out there on the beach? We hope to have at least another two leatherbacks! Keep checking back for updates!