Are you a Turtle?

You bet your sweet ass I am! And in order to commiserate with our fellow club members, Vince and I went to the KZN coast to see nesting sea turtles.

KZN Headquarters in Kosi Bay

Five species of sea turtle are found off the coast of South Africa: loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, green and olive ridley turtles. Female hawksbill, green and the very rare oliver ridley turtles nest primarily on the Madagascar coast. 

But the loggerheads and leatherbacks come up onto the beaches in Maputaland in KZN to lay their eggs. And there, KZN Wildlife has a turtle monitoring project from the north of Sodwana Bay to Bhanga Nek. 

you need a permit for Kosi Bay Mouth and Bhanga Nek

We visited Bhanga Nek over three nights where Community Guides run tours in the area during the laying/nesting season between November and February. 

A typical tour starts after sunset around 7:00 pm and runs for 2 to 4 hours, depending on sightings. You wander down the beach near Bhanga Nek on the lookout for the seasonal visitors. Sand trails. Actual turtles coming out of the sea. The loggerhead and leatherback turtles return to the same sandy beaches on which they were born to lay their own eggs. 

First the females laboriously pull their way up the sand from the surf to the dune. Then they dig a large hole in the sand. During this time, we are not allowed to take flash photographs or to even approach the turtle. Once the nest is finished, our Community Guide places a night vision red light at the base where the eggs will drop and we are invited in to watch her lay her eggs. She then covers up her eggs with sand to protect them from predators. An exhausting process for the loggerhead. You can hear her heavy breathing. She paces herself because next she must drag herself back down the sand and into the sea.

the turtle research center at Bhanga Nek

Later the hatchlings run the gauntlet of ghost crabs and other predators in their attempts to reach the sea. 

The sight of the huge turtles hauling themselves in an ungainly fashion up the beach, digging a pit in the sand with their hind flippers and then depositing some 100 or so eggs that resemble ping pong balls is mesmerizing stuff. It’s made even more fascinating by the passionate, knowledgeable guides. Watching this can be a moving experience.

Here is a little field guide for the turtles of KZN:

LEATHERBACK TURTLE – Dermochelys coriacea.
Identification: The largest of all sea turtles. Leatherbacks can attain a mass of over 900kg and are easily recognised by the pliable, leather-like shell (up to 2.5m in length) with it’s 7 distinct lateral ridges. The body is dark, blue-grey in colour and mottled. The forelimbs are very large and prominent.

Biology: Female leatherback turtles come ashore at night on the high tide and in one breeding season, may lay up to 1000 eggs in batches of 100-200 at intervals of 9-10 days. The juveniles (only 50-60mm in length) then hatch after 70 days and head out to sea where as few as one in a thousand may reach sexual maturity. The female then returns every 3-5 years to breed again. Leatherbacks grow rapidly, feeding almost exclusively on vast numbers of jellyfish. They reach sexual maturity after only 4-5 years (12-15 years for other turtles).

Behaviour: Leatherbacks turtles travel the ocean currents in search of their prey and may dive to over 100m and remain submerged for up to 35 minutes. Found offshore around the whole coast, they breed in Northern KwaZulu Natal between November and January. In 1966 only 5 leatherbacks nested on the Zululand coast. Thanks to conservation efforts the average number of nesting leatherbacks has now risen to more than 90 – an encouraging recovery although their status still remains vulnerable. Leatherback turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and nesting females are still taken in some areas of Mozambique.

LOGGERHEAD TURTLE – Caretta caretta.
Identification: The head of the loggerhead is large and square. The shell is dark to yellow-brown and tapers to the rear with a row of five large plates on either side of the central plates. The shell plates on the loggerhead turtle do not overlap. Each limb has two claws and the bill is slightly hooked.

Biology: The breeding habits of the loggerhead are much the same as those of the leatherback. The females come ashore and lay up to 500 eggs at 15 day intervals. The juveniles then hatch after 60-70 days and head out to sea where they spend their early years drifting in the Agulhas current. Sexual maturity is reached at an estimated age of 12-15 years.

Behaviour: Loggerheads tend to keep more inshore, hunting around reefs and rocky estuaries. They use their strong jaws to crush prey which includes, molluscs, crabs, crayfish and sea urchins. Like the leatherback turtle they nest on the beaches of Northern KwaZulu Natal from November to January – see migration calendar. Since the early 1960s the population has increased from under 100 to over 500 nesting annually in the Maputaland Marine Reserve.

Community guides and contact numbers for bookings:

We used Simanga Mageba: +27 72 725 2738 / +27 074 918 3138 and he was great! I highly recommend him.

Others: 
Agrippa Shange and Thembelihle Ngubane: +27 76 046 6674
Philani Ngubane: +27 79 055 2486 / +27 83 604 0281