Young loggerhead sea turtle to make public debut at Skidaway Marine Science Day

In August of last year, a tiny loggerhead sea turtle was born on Ossabaw Island. Unlike his brothers and sisters, he wasn’t able make his way to the ocean. Fortunately for this one baby loggerhead, he was rescued by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Having determined the young turtle would not survive on his own, Mark Dodd of DNR contacted the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Extension Service Aquarium on Skidaway Island.

Since his arrival last year, the sea turtle, named “Ossabaw,” has thrived. (Actually, while he may be referred to as a “he,” his gender is not known.) Starting as a small hatchling that would easily fit in the palm of your hand, he has lived behind the scenes at the aquarium and has been cared for by the curator team of Devin Dumont and Karin Paquin.

Ossabaw is held by Karin Paqun, assistant curator at the UGA Marine Extension Service Aquarium.

“When he first arrived, he was so tiny,” said Paquin. “Now he is over three pounds and very active.”

Loggerhead sea turtles are on the threatened species list at the state and federal level. They are the most common sea turtle species to nest regularly along the Georgia coast and barrier islands. Female loggerhead turtles crawl up on beaches between May and October to lay their eggs in nest chambers dug in the sand with their back flippers and then return to the sea.  The eggs incubate for approximately two months before the hatchlings emerge and head to the water where they can live as long as 70 years and grow to over 200 pounds.

“We hope that Ossabaw will grow strong, healthy and be ready for release in three to four years,” said Paquin. “If a turtle is deemed not releasable by a veterinarian, we work with larger aquariums to find a new home.”

Ossabaw’s predecessor at the aquarium, “Eddie,” was released into the wild last year. However, an earlier loggerhead, “Joey,” was transferred to the Georgia Aquarium when he grew too large for his home at the UGA Aquarium.

Ossabaw the young, loggerhead sea turtle.

After living in a tank behind the scenes for his first year of life, Ossabaw will make his debut on public display in time for Skidaway Marine Science Day, which will be held on Saturday, October 20 from noon to 4 p.m.

Skidaway Marine Science Day is a campus-wide open house with activities geared for all ages from young children to adults. These will include programs, tours, displays and hands-on activities, primarily related to marine science and the coastal environment. The event is open to the public and admission is free.

Along with the aquarium, the event will be presented by the campus’s marine research and education organizations, including Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, the UGA Shellfish Research Laboratory and Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary.

The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography will offer a variety of activities for adults and children, including tours of the Research Vessel Savannah and smaller research vessels; science displays and talks on current research programs; and hands-on science activities.

The aquarium will be open to visitors with no admission fee. In addition to “Ossabaw,” the aquarium education staff will offer visitors a full afternoon of activities including science talks, a reptile show, boat tours, touch tanks and behind-the-scene tours of the aquarium.

The UGA Shellfish Laboratory will provide visitors with displays and information on marine life on the Georgia Coast. Children will be given the opportunity to help protect the marine environment by bagging oyster shells used for oyster reef restoration projects.

The staff of Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary will set up their remotely-operated-vehicle (ROV) in a swimming pool and teach visitors how to “drive” it and pick up objects from the bottom.

Skidaway Marine Science Day will also be open to non-campus scientific and environmental groups. Organizations such as The Dolphin Project and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center will be on-hand to present, information, displays and activities.

School classes or other large groups wishing to attend Skidaway Marine Science Day can be accommodated only through advance arrangements. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325.

All activities at Skidaway Marine Science Day will be free. For additional information, call (912) 598-2325, or visit http://www.skio.usg.edu.

A great day-trip to Ossawbaw Island

A team of Skidaway Institute scientists visited Ossawbaw Island this week.

The beach

One of the main reasons for the trip was to perform some maintenance on the Barrier Island Network.

Skidaway Institute is one of a group of organizations developing a network of cameras and sensors that will turn the island into a remote laboratory for researchers and students. Right now the network consists of a weather station, a water monitoring sensor at the main dock, two more in wells in the interior of the island and a camera at the dock. You can access the pictures and data here.

(l-r) Herb Windom, Bob Antonelli, Charles Robertson, Sam Cook and Debbie Wells examine a a sensor that spent a little too much time in salt water.

The technical crew needed to change out the sensor at the dock and install a sensor in one of the wells. Long-term exposure to salt water is very rough on scientific equipment.

We got around mostly in pick-up trucks.

Also, the geology team of Clark Alexander and Mike Robinson tramped through the woods to find a good site to obtain core samples.

Clark Alexander and Mike Robinson emptying a core.

That is part of a project to date the origin of the island.

Kathryn Sutton at the beach with her air sampling gear.

Georgia Southern grad student Kathryn Sutton also went along to obtain air samples from the beach and to collect Spanish moss for her research project looking at the possibility of using Spanish moss as a bio-indicator of atmospheric mercury from coal-fired power plants.

The team also placed a new sensor in one of the two research wells on the island.

Sam Cook (Siemitsu Computers) and Bob Antonelli hook up the well sensor while Charles Robertson looks on.

We didn’t see a lot of wildlife this time around. The fresh water ponds are low, which probably keeps the alligators away from the various causeways. Herb Windom and Paul Pressly (Ossabaw Foundation) did meet one of the island’s pet pigs, “Paul Mitchell.”

Heb Windom and Paul Pressly meet "Paul Mitchell."

It was a beautiful day and the island scenes were, as always, a treat.

A dead tree on the Ossabaw beach

Dead palm trees

An Ossabaw Island saltmarsh

Great day on Ossabaw Island!

We took a trip to Ossabaw Island yesterday, and it was a very memorable experience. I am posting some photos. As you probably know, you can click the photos to see a larger version.

We took reporter Charles Gray and photographer Ricardo Thomas from WTOC-TV (CBS) and reporter Chuck Mobley and photographer John Carrington from the Savannah Morning News to see the island first hand and to do stories on the sensor network that is still in its infancy (See my earlier posting on the network.)

Our intrepid small-boat captain, Jay Frip, drove us down the Intracoastal Waterway in the new 28 Parker research boat. Professor Herb Windom and Chuck Mobley’s son, Cooper, also came along.

The weather cooperated beautifully. Temperatures ranging from the 50′s when we left the dock to mid 70′s by the afternoon. Couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.

The on-island coordinator, Jim Bitler, met us at the dock and was a fantastic host/guide for the day. He and Herb did a great job explaining the sensor network concept to the reporters. Then he took us on a lengthy tour of the island.

The island is beautiful. I have visited several of the other undeveloped Georgia sea islands — Cumberland, Sapelo Wassaw and St. Catherine’s — and they are all breathtaking.

There were a few unique twists to Ossabaw. While Cumberland Island has its wild horses, Ossabaw has its small herd of “wild” donkeys. It seems that several years ago, the state decided to remove the island’s band of feral donkeys, but several of them could not be moved to the mainland because they didn’t pass the health inspection. Allegedly, the few remaining on the island were sterilized, but that must not have worked, because now there are 8 or 9 of them. Jim Bitler says they live off the land. They don’t appear too wary of humans, as you can tell from the photo.

On the way to the beach, we ran across several very large alligators. One was sunning on the bank of a pond (left). The other two were lying by the side of the road, on a small causeway across some marsh area. They moved out of the way when we came up in the pick up truck. I’m glad we weren’t on foot.

Currently, only a relatively small number of people are able to visit Ossabaw. When Sandy West and her family sold the island to the State of Georgia, they specified the island useage be restricted to “natural, scientific and cultural study, research and education, and environmentally sound preservation, conservation and manaagement of the Island’s ecosystem.”

Soon the sensor network will be up and running, and students, teachers, researchers and others will be able to experience some of what Ossabaw has to offer, without ever setting foot there. Should be interesting.