The Tau Project

Why Tau is needed on Maui…

Entangled Hawksbill Hatchling

Cheryl King here, the marine biologist who will be working with Tau in Hawai`i (I’m so excited!).  I’ve been running the Hawksbill Recovery Project on Maui since 2000, and over these 16 seasons there have been so many incidences when having Tau here would’ve greatly benefited the turtles.  Having worked with nesting sea turtles for nearly 20 years, I’ve certainly learned how to spot nests, but Hawaiian beaches provide extra challenges.

Here’s my Top 10 List of Why Finding Sea Turtle Nests in Hawai`i is Difficult:

1) Hundreds of miles of coastline: much of which is potential nesting habitat (despite most of it being suboptimal due to multiple factors).

2) Non-continuous beaches: there are many different types of pocket beaches and some aren’t easily accessible unlike on the East Coast of the USA, where turtle patrollers can drive an ATV along the coast for miles and find nests right away.

3) Vegetation: the nesters have a difficult time digging through some of the often thick dune vegetation, and the lack of sand cues makes it tricky to identify the nest locations.

4) Hawksbills are very discrete nesters, if they can find a good spot right away: if we don’t watch them lay their eggs it’s very difficult to know if they nested and where the nest actually is.

5) High tides, big surf and strong tradewinds: these factors can quickly erase any signs of the tracks and clues to where the nest is.

6) Eroding coastlines: storms and sea level rise are negatively affecting our beaches.

7) Lack of awareness: most people don’t recognize turtle tracks as something they should report, so we’re likely not receiving some nesting/hatching information.

8) Shortage of volunteers: we simply don’t currently have the volunteer capacity to patrol all Hawaiian beaches every morning during nesting season (which starts in May).

9) Relatively low numbers of nests: Hawaiian hawksbills are critically endangered with likely fewer than 100 nesting females, and most Hawaiian green sea turtles (listed as threatened) nest in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

10) We’ve been waiting for Tau to be our sea turtle conservation ambassador!

Why is it important that we find the nests?  This will allow us to calculate when the female may return to lay more nests, so we start patrolling for her at night to protect her during that process, and then we know right where those nests are. 

We then can save the hatchlings from the following dangers:

1) Predators while in the nest:  mongooses dig up the eggs.

2) Predators while emerging from the nest: crabs, mongooses, cats, dogs, and birds.

3) Coastal lighting often disorients the hatchlings, which can lead them into dangerous situations like roads and backyards where they waste their valuable energy.

4) If they emerge during the day, they can quickly become dehydrated and die in the hot sun if they’re not rescued.

5) They often get entangled in the dune vegetation (see photo).

6) They’re subject to harassment from people who don’t know that they should let them crawl to the ocean on their own.

Tau will also provide:

Close companionship that will offer more balance in my hectic life, an exercise partner, protection in unsafe situations, a predator deterrent at the nests, and a fun educational link to the community (especially kids).

We’ve saved thousands of sea turtles, and with Tau’s help we’ll be even more efficient at doing so!  I can’t thank the Tau Team enough for facilitating this long-time dream, and can’t wait to have them come to Maui! 

Mahalo (thank you) for your support!