What another exciting night we had on Juno! Our crew encountered four turtles in total, which kept us quite busy. All of the turtles that we encountered had already been tagged previously.
The first turtle to be spotted last night was Cinderella, a turtle that was tagged earlier this season by LMC. This is her second appearance on Juno, but she likely nested on adjacent beaches since we last saw her. Last night, Cinderella nested just over a mile from her previous nest site! Not too far from Cinderella was another leatherback that was first tagged earlier this season, Waverley. Waverley has been seen twice before by our researchers, but not since mid-April. We were excited to see another familiar turtle!
Meanwhile, on the other end of the beach…
At about the same time that Waverley was spotted, another tagged leatherback was spotted on north Juno. The turtle was tagged by fellow researchers, so we will reach out to them to find out her history. It is the first time that our biologists have seen her nest on Juno, so she nested elsewhere previously. Not too much later, our fourth leatherback was spotted. Storm was also on north Juno Beach just before 1 am. Storm was first tagged by LMC in 2012. She grew a bit since we last saw her.
We love busy nights like last night because they keep us on our toes. How many turtles will we encounter next week? Stay tuned!