Public excavation tonight - meet at Goatshed 6PM!

After a slow start, the hatching season seems to have finally kicked off. One green and one loggerhead nest hatched last night, meaning we can do our first public excavation of the season tonight.

Meet us at the Goatshed at 6PM to walk down to the nest site on Alagadi Beach. There we will dig up the remains of one of the nests that hatched last night and show you what we find inside. This will mainly be hatched egg fragments but usually also includes live hatchlings that didn't make it to the surface yet. Excavating the nests allows us to increase the number of hatchlings that make it to the sea in an attempt to boost numbers to combat other pressures such as fishing net entanglement of the adults. It also reduces predation, as a hatching nest can easily be located by stray dogs and foxes by the smell emerging from the sand with the first hatchings to come out.

Any live hatchlings that we do find in the nest will be kept until after dark for release when predation risk in the sea is lower. Please make a booking at the goatshed if you would like to see hatchlings released later in the week. We are currently booked up a few days in advance for nightwatch as we are still in the overlap period between laying and hatching. You are welcome to make a booking to see a hatchling release but we will not know until the day whether or not we will have any hatchlings to release, so please call back on the day of your booking to find out.

Thanks and see you later!