Yes, I'm aware I'm a dork. No valuable input needed.
I also have some more photos that have been backlogged a bit. These first two photos are a couple of freshly-hatched sea turtles we rescued at different times last year. The first one hatched on August 19th. The entire nest simply erupted out of the sand in front of the Winchester-Swann just after noon, and all the little hatchlings raced for the sea... except for two. These two were the runts of the litter and got stuck at the bottom of the nest under their siblings' shells. Some of the beach employees called our department over, as CAOS is the de facto Humane Society at the hotel, and we dug the nest out to make sure everyone had made it to the water. This picture is of the stronger of the two runts; as soon as we dug it out and placed it on the sand, it scrambled for the water. The other one was simply exhausted by the day's events so we kept it in a box in the office for the day to let it rest and released it later that night. Considering sea turtles are supposed to hatch in the middle of the night, the runtiest one probably ended up with the best chances of survival. See also: Charlotte's Web.
I found this next sea turtle swimming around in the dock area behind the Winchester-Swann after a boat trip to Stingray Sandbar. I would've left it alone and let it stay in the water, except that a)the dock is a dead end canal with somewhat stagnant water and a long, twisting path back to the open ocean, and b)the resident Tarpon, giant (4-6 foot long) fish who have been trained to fight over scraps thrown down from the neighboring restaurant were taking a little too much interest in the little guy, going to far as to bump him with their noses to see if he'd put up a fight. The boat captain and I scooped him up in a bucket and brought him back to the CAOS building for a nap, then rereleased it later that night on the other side of the hotel where the open ocean lay. I know these two rescue acts are sort of messing around with natural selection, but considering the low survival rate of sea turtles (about 1 in 100 make it to adulthood) and the fact that all sea turtle species are endangered, plus the fact that it's legal to eat these animals in Arrecife (bred in captivity, but still), I figured it wouldn't hurt too much to nudge the balance back in favor of the turtles just a little bit. Who knows - given a little time, we may start seeing more of this:
(Photo taken by Channing - sorry, I only have the low-res version right now)
