When I landed in Gili Air, I had only experienced diving with French marine animals. Coming here, I knew I would discover a totally different marine life and I was really looking forward to it. It’s during my first ever dive in Gili Air for coral restoration, that I fell forever in love with sea turtles. This baby was just sleeping on the coral nursing structure and it was absolutely the purest and cutest moment.
Credit: Lea (myself!)
Later, during our formation as PADI Scientific Diver, we learnt how to differentiate the species of sea turtles, their anatomy, circle of life and especially how to identify them underwater and during turtle ID data entry.
There are 7 species of sea turtles around the world and all of them are endangered. Yet, they are such important ambassadors of the marine life in ecological, economical and cultural ways. For example, they contribute to the health of seagrass beds and coral reefs, help maintain the balance of other marine species such as jelly fish and plankton, and they’re seen as symbols of wisdom, longevity, and resilience and their presence has been woven into many culture’s myths, legends and traditions.
Credit: Conservation Diver
The 2 main species that we can find around the Gilis are Green Sea Turtles and Hawksbill Turtles. Each turtle has a unique ‘fingerprint’ on their face: the scouts. The shape and arrangement of the scouts on the turtle’s face are unique to each turtle and remain unchanged as they grow. This assists researchers to distinguish individuals and follow their movements to different sites over time.
Turtle ID dives:
Turtle ID dives are a 4-person job with different roles. When a turtle is spotted, the first person approaching is the camera person. He/she will, in the first place, need to take a general picture, like the environment and the carapace.
Then, my favourite part, get closer to both sides of the turtle’s face to take a clear picture of the left and the right scouts. Then, the stick person approaches to take the measure of the carapace. He/she notifies the third person, the slate person, who writes down every parameter of the turtle: species, sex, size, time of dive, and depth. The fourth person takes videos of the entire process and of human disturbances.
Photos of Haney (new turtle identified by me!)
Credit: Lea (myself!)
Turtle identification and data entry:
Back on land, it’s important to keep track of every turtle seen in order to evaluate the fluctuation of the population around the 3 Gili islands, measure all the human disturbance on sea turtles and estimate their health. That is why Gili Shark Conservation (GSC) proceeds turtle ID and store all the data in a huge database counting nearly 800 Green Turtles and 200 Hawksbill Turtles today.
How does identification work? By using a face ID software. Thanks to the left and right pictures of the turtle’s face taken during the dive, the software is able (with human validation) to tell if a turtle has already been identified by looking at the shape of the scouts. The user must mark the end of the beak (1), the upper point of the eye (2), and the end of the scouts at the end of the head (3).Then, they must circle all the scouts, play the facial recognition and let the magic happen.
If this turtle has already been identified, previous pictures of it will be proposed and we should add the new pictures taken in the database. If this turtle has never been spotted before, we must declare a new entity, give it a cute new name and add it to the massive database. So many names have already been given but as so many new people are joining the team, everyone loves to give a name that commemorates their stay at GSC.
Credit: Lea
During my stay at GSC, I enjoyed every hour spent identifying turtles (real dozens of hours) and the thrill of giving them names of my family or just cute random names. So if you’re like me, a turtle newbie, don’t hesitate to come and leave a “fake” mark on these lovely creatures living in this wonderful landscape called ocean, and become a real turtle ID nerd. And send me news of Haney, Galilea and Voldemort!
