Hundreds of hatchlings released ahead of Grace

(CNS): Before Tropical Storm Grace hit the Cayman Islands Wednesday morning, the Department of Environment’s volunteer turtle team scoured the beaches to rescue baby turtles that had hatched but had not made it out of their nests in an effort to stop them from drowning from water inundation during the storm.

And so, on Tuesday evening, several hours before Grace came calling, volunteers released hundreds of the babies into the ocean with the hopes of saving as many as possible from the impending weather. The teams also relocated 23 nests that were close to the high water mark and removed hatchlings that could be released.

In a rare sight, several hundred babies were all released from buckets at the same time, giving them a fighting chance.

Lorri Lamb, who runs the volunteer programme, said that the teams worked hard all day Tuesday along Grand Cayman’s beaches, checking every nest at risk and doing what they could to save as many as possible.

“Removing the hatchlings that have not yet made it from their nests and releasing them into the ocean gave them a fighting chance,” she told CNS. “We prefer not to have to move nests or intervene in the natural course of things but under the circumstances we had to act.”

Somewhere in the region of 800 hatchlings were released on the northern end of Seven Mile Beach, a few yards from the water’s edge, to give them a chance of survival.

While many of the green turtles were raring to go, some of the loggerheads and hawksbills, the rarest of all turtles in the Cayman Islands, needed a little more help but all of them made it to the ocean several hours before the storm, when the current was likely to carry them away from the danger of Grace, if not from an ocean full of hungry predators.

See a video of the release on the DoE Facebook page.