Looking on the Bright Side

Lots of good news today! Cris was at R3 and came over to ask me how the project was going - I told her honestly that I didn't think it was doing so well and I was unsure if I could ever write a proper paper about it. I told her my concerns about their feeding schedule/content, I mentioned the ones that had died, we discussed the lethargic one that is on its own, and also the Vitamin A deficient turtles. And here is what we determined:

Feeding Schedule/Content: I told Cris that I had brought some carrot with me yesterday and today because I was worried about the turtles. She was very surprised at how much they loved it! I mentioned some other foods that are good for them and asked if there was any possibility of getting pellets for them. She told me that the problem with the pellets is that they are very expensive to get in Brazil and so unfortunately we don't really have the option at R3. She did ask for me to send her an e-mail with all the types of food that is good for them so that she could tell the other people and we could get the supplies in. She talked to some of the other people that work there and got the go-ahead for me to change their diet. I am also going to be the one who feeds them on Monday Wednesday and Friday so I can keep track of what they are getting and one of the volunteers on the weekend will have their food list to work off of. So much better!

Death/Lethargy: The vets at R3 now all know about how many turtles have died and the serious condition that some of the others are in. It's sad that it took this long for them to know, and bad on my part for not informing everyone, but now they are taking a closer look as to what they think is the issue. I think for the most part it's starvation but it will be interesting to hear what they think. The lethargic turtle that was taken out of the tub yesterday is looking better today but is still being monitored and kept seperate. I was told also that if I find any other turtles becoming weak the same way that one was that I should take it out for special attention as well!

Vitamin A: The shipment of Vitamin A injections is on its way! It won't get here until next Friday but it's really good knowing that it is coming. I kind of thought that everyone had forgotten about it so it was a nice surprise to hear that news today :)

When I was getting ready to feed them their carrots it was obvious that they all knew what was coming. It was adorable! Most of the turtles swam to the edge to get close to where I was sitting before they even saw the carrots. Once the container came out and some more clued in they started jumping off the ramp and splashing around! I got bitten a couple times today but for the most part they let go right when it happened. Only one guy hurt me but still didn't break the skin. Yesterday they would only eat the pieces if I wiggled them in the water to interest them but today I didn't have to do that! Most of them would poke their heads out of the water and open their mouths waiting for me to feed them just like baby birds haha. They are just too funny.

I can't remember if I wrote about the field trip that Tracy and I got to go on to PEST - Parque Estadual da Serra do Tabuleiro - so just in case I'll do a little recap before I post a couple pictures from it! PEST is the largest protected area in Santa Catarina State occupying over 87, 000 hectares totalled over the 9 counties that it is part of. The project aims to repopulate the park with animals that are no longer seen here or are only around in small numbers. Most of the animals are semi-captive allowing them to adapt to the local environment and preparing them for release back to the wild. In this time it also allows for the animals to continue natural reproduction in the park further encouraging their numbers! Since the park area is so huge I wasn't expecting to see many animals other than what we see day-to-day here. But I was so wrong! We got to see an Anta and her offspring, capybaras (the largest rodent in the world), and an emu (haha). I have to say that Anta's are probably the weirdest things ever; they look like they belong in a Star Wars movie and sound like something prehistoric - super cool!

ANTA!!! Or Tapir. Surprisingly their closest relatives are horses and rhinos... doesn't look like either to me personally! They can get up to 7ft long, 3 ft tall, and 700lbs! holy

This is the offspring. We saw the Mom cross the boardwalk first and then Tracy and I heard this really weird sound in the bushes but didn't think too much about it... not long after along came the baby!

Capybara! Biggest living rodent in the world related to (never guess who) chinchillas! Jubilee's Brazilian relative! It's common name was derived from the Guarani word meaning "master of the grasses" - which is fitting because all they did was eat the whole time. The top recorded weight was a whopping 232lbs! Can you imagine?

At one point there was a group of about 10 all together and another 4 or 5 in another group nearby! We were trying to get close enough for a decent picture but this idiot girl who would never shut up and was really annoying scared them all away. Usually when you're walking towards an animal and it turns away from you it means it's going to leave if you go closer. What is she even doing in this program if she doesn't know that?! :P

It was pretty rainy (I think this is the day I broke my camera :( sad faces) but Tracy and I were pretty stoked to see Capybaras in real life! If you look to the right of the picture you can kind of see the blobs that are them. Coolest rodent ever. Definitely wanted to take them all home haha.

Short and Not-So-Sweet

Two more turtles are gone. It is sad but it has become less of a question as to whether one has died or not but rather who has died this time. Today it was #38 and my favorite from the start #45. I was especially sad and shocked to find #45 because he was doing so well on Monday. I really had my hopes up that he would end up pulling through and be one of the strong ones.

Today Sandro and Joice were there as well so I had a chance to speak with them about the project and discuss how many had died and what symptoms each of them had. Sandro was taking a quick look at one of the turtles which previously had no signs of any poor health but has now developed one swollen eye and has extremely low activity; we're talking barely moves when you touch his foot. Sandro took him to observe in a different area so we'll see what ends up happening with him.

I've decided to clean the water every day that I go incase bacteria of some kind is being contained in the tank. I also started to bring some shredded carrot with me. Today was the first time doing it and it was a hit! All the turtles loved it and I had a great time feeding them. I would hold a piece in front of a turtle and make sure that everyone was eating (as best as I could keep track of anyways). I think some of them were actually hunting me rather than the carrot but settled for what they could get :P It was kind of scary at times having all these turtles crowding around me for the next piece. I think I was on the verge of having a turtle riot!

Anyways, that's about all I have to update with for now other than some photos from R3: A super cool anteater and some crazy-cute marmosets!

Time Travel

So recently I went a little further into the future because I was no longer satisfied with only being ahead 4 hours. I have decided that now I will be 5 hours ahead of you guys!! Just joking, I can't actually time travel (sadly) it was just daylight savings in Brazil.

Here it is common to not go out for your night until about midnight and so when I went out on Saturday I technically didn't leave the house until 1AM! Some nights we don't get back until about 6 because of the late start and the fact that the bars seem like they never close, but we didn't get back until 9AM!!! Did not feel like it was THAT late, that's for sure! It was a good night out though; snooker (I'm getting better every time! I almost won once haha), some beers, walking beside the lake, and of course playing with super cute stray dogs (typical Karen thing to do). I think that this time change was harder to adjust to than the jet-lag was when we first arrived! Weird.

I went to work with my turtles again today and I only have a little bit of sad news this time; #53 passed away. He isn't one of the ones that I have described before in other posts but it was still sad to find him. I looked up his information from the first day of measurements and he did not have any lesions or wounds that we were concerned with. However, under my "notes" column I had written "foaming at the mouth". A couple other turtles are like this as well but they are usually the more agressive ones and I just took it as being a sign of defense. Turtles don't get rabies... do they? I am going to do some reading and try to see if I can find papers or articles that mention this as a symptom to some diseases or problems (maybe respiratory?). I will keep you posted with what I find out - in the mean time, lets all hope that I don't get myself into another rabies situation!

Now for the good news!! #55 (the new guy I found last time) is alive and doing well! I was a little worried that he would just sit in the water and his skin would get worse. Luckily I was wrong and he's just as rambunctious as ever :D And even MORE good news! #45 (if you recall he was the small and blind turtle that I loved from the start) is getting better! He is not as lethargic as he used to be and his eyes are getting tons better. His left eye is completely opened (with a little swelling) and his right eye is just behind it! Just for fun, an update on #33 because I like him a lot too (the one that has no front feet). He's happy as a little turtle should be, just hanging out and swimming around in his own super cute way; he kind of looks like he has put pool floaties on his back feet because they are always higher than his front with all his toes spread really wide apart.

I changed their water today and pulled out a bunch of the leaves that were in the pool. Of course I didn't think to ask if they had been fed yet before cleaning them and as I was sitting on the edge just watching all my little guys hang out - lunch arrived. So my crystal clear, PRISTINE, water was almost immediately turned to scuzzy fish water. Had to happen eventually anyways I suppose. At least this way they had a good view of where their food was :P I still feel bad for the little turtles when it comes to feeding time. They just don't have the size to compete agains all the big ones to get a good chunk of fish. Most of the small ones are left eating the small floating pieces left over. To give you an idea of just how small these bits are I thought of a pretty good analogy; remember in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" when the Grinch was going to all the Whos' houses, leaving crumbs much too small for all the Whos' mouses? That's the kind of small that I'm talking about. But #50 looked like he was having a blast dodging the other turtles and snatching them up! He is now anoher one of my favorites - he has an extra long and pointy tail which I like to think helps him bomb around the pool and makes him relatively easy to spot among the other 53 turtles.

After work I came home and showered and then Vanessa and I went downtown to take care of a few errands. I can't remember if I wrote it here or not but I had lost one of the balls to my nose ring the other day which resulted in me having to walk around ALL WEEKEND with it tucked up inside (since the store that I needed was closed until Monday). That was one of the things we did and now I'm all back to "normal"! It feels so much better outside of my nose, and I also feel a lot less naked. We went to take my camera in for an estimate of how much it would be to fix it - they said it's free to get the estimate but only if I actually fix it, otherwise it's 20R to have them tell me what they would do without actually doing it. The guy was pretty nice though and told me the most likely problem with my camera and that it usually costs 90R to fix it. Now I don't know what to do - spend the money to have them look at it with the possibility of it being more expensive, or use Vanessa's old digital and wait until I get home to fix my camera (or possibly buy a new one).

Now I'm going to update the data for my turtles on my computer, do some research, and write out a proposed meal plan for my adorable bale of turtles :D

P.S. A bale is what you call a group of turtles
P.P.S. No I did not know that before and yes I looked it up specifically to write here in my blog
P.P.P.S. I love/miss you.... yes, YOU!

Turtles!

This morning was my first day working solo on the project and collecting actual data! First thing I did was sit and watch the turtles for about half an hour (so they got used to me being there and moved as they would normally) and then I counted how many were on each type of substrate. I was very surprised with how amusing it was to watch them all! I also wrote down how many of the turtles had lesions that were basking outside of the water. Next I grabbed the nail polish and started remarking almost everyone! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be; since it was pretty nice in the morning the turtles wanted to stay basking out of the water meaning that after I re-painted them I could count on them staying out of the pool! It was a lot easier than trying to put all of them into a few buckets and going one by one. Every once in a while I got confused about what the actual number of the turtle was but by measuring the length of its shell it was easy enough to figure out who it was from the data collected last Wednesday. I did have a very sad moment today however. When checking the pool for more turtles that I hadn't marked yet I found #9 had died :( It was one of the turtles missing information from the previous day so I think he had died before Wednesday and we just didn't see him that day. I feel terrible about it and that I could have done more to prevent it. I think the problem for the little turtles is that the ramp is the favorite place to be which then makes a huge traffic jam and once it's full, unless you're big and mean, there is no gettng out of the pool. I'm not sure how to fix this though because if I fill the whole area with ramps there will be nowhere for them to swim! Hmm

On a bit of a happier note I found a brand new turtle! I don't know when he got there but we didn't have any of his information down and he was not designated a number yet. When I first found him I was afraid he was suffering the same way #9 had been; he was weak, had very little colour in his skin, and he felt very fagile when I was checking him for lesions. I decided to leave him in a bucket for a bit while I marked some other turtles to give him time to dry off. By the time I got to him he was already in better spirits! He was more energetic and very social. I painted on his new number (55 - very stylish) and set him loose to run around in the sand as he wanted. Instead of running away like most of the other turtles though he followed me around! Even when I wasn't in their area he would track the perimeter near me and try to get out! He is definitely another one of my favorites now :)

After talking to a few people about #9 and what I should do with him it was time to watch my turtles again. This half an hour wasn't quite as fun as the first one though because I kept thinking about what I could have done different to save #9. I even had to cry over him - a little turtle that I didn't even know! I felt so silly but I couldn't help it. Poor little guy. Once I finished collecting my second set of data I checked in on #45 again (he is the small blind one). I think he is getting weaker and is in desperate need of special attention. I have to talk with Vanessa about their diet and see what they are eating. I am still frustrated with the lack of communication between people at R3 and how long it takes to get things into action. I'm going to see if they will let me feed them Mon Wed Fri when I'm there so that I can make sure they are getting at least that much.

While I was looking after my turtle buisiness Sandro and Cris were washing a couple of oil-spill penguins! I didn't get to watch because I took too long with all my little dudes but it's nice knowing that they are all cleaned up now :)

Another bit of unfortunate news - I went to take some pictures of my favorite turtles to show you guys and my camera wouldn't turn on. I tried not to panick and was hoping that it was just a dead battery... but no suck luck. I'm not sure if there is a place here that will be able to look at it for me or not. I'm confused as to what went wrong though - it simply does nothing! This may mean that I need to purchase camera number 6 here in Brazil. Bummer.

I'm not sure if I told everyone yet but our trip to the Amazon is officially booked! We fly to Manaus Nov 14 to spend a couple days there, followed by 5 days floating down the Amazon River in our hamocks, finishing with a couple days in Belem and flying back to Florianopolis on the 24th! I am absolutely stoked!

Earlier today Tracy and I went downtown to get her to the bus station for her 2 week journey in the West! At 7:45 ish Tracy was on board and all set. She has details about what she's doing in her blog - sounds like it's going to be really cool!

As for this weekend I don't have any solid plans. But I'm sure trouble will find me somehow ;)

Pictures!

Buying some flippy floppies!
Standing in the coolest phone booth ever while drinking a smirnoff ice... legally haha
These are the weird things that we were chasing in the sand!! Little aliens
This is our first day on Canasvieras beach :)
CORN!!
After lunch, happy as clams :D
Just a butterfly

That's it! Just wanted to show you all some pictures!
xoxo

Food + Shopping + Movies + Beaches = Girl Weekend!

This past weekend everyone at home was celebrating Thanksgiving by eating copious amounts of turkey, stuffing, turnip puff, and all my other favorite foods (and I am totally jealous of everyone). It was also a holiday here in Brazil; we didn't have any turkey though. The actual holiday was on Tues Oct 12 and so most people got to have a long weekend from Friday until Tuesday! I looked it up and they were celebrating "Nossa Senhora de Aparecida" - Our Lady of Aparecida. They also celebrate "Dia das Crianças" or Children's Day - just like our Mother's or Father's day, but for kids! Anyways, Vanessa cooked us all (Hilda (Mom), Nivaldo (Dad), Yuri(brother), Beatrice (sister in-law), Tia Maria, Grandma, Tracy and I!!) a family dinner on Friday. It was an amazing feast including ribs, chicken, and quinoa with broccoli! Everything was so delicious.
On Saturday we took the opportunity to check out Vanessa's apartment in Canasvieras. Anastacia, Vanessa, Tracy and I got our stuff ready and then all piled into one car and headed out for the weekend! It's only about 40 minutes north from us but it was fun to go on a mini road trip. That night was just a relaxed night with the girls - shopping, a homecooked meal, chocolate and a girly movie ;)
We planned on waking up early the next morning to go to the beach but when Vanessa woke up at 8 it was cloudy. 9am - still cloudy. 10am - STILL cloudy and so Vanessa turned off the alarm and gave up. Next time we woke up it was sunny but still a little cold; we didn't want to waste all day inside though so we all went out for a nice walk on the beach. Here we spent a lot of time chasing after these really weird sea creatures which would ride each wave onto the sand to eat and quickly burry back as the wave returned. But if you saw their bubbles from them digging you could pick up a big chunk of sand and catch them! It's just like how on White Rock beach you can spend so long catching and playing with those little crabs waiting under the rocks. After that we decided to visit the local Alligator. She lives only a short drive away and she has been there for so long that they have officially protected her little area. It was really cool because there are only fences between her area and the foot path but she is not restricted to staying there; but she does! It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be because she was sleeping on the other side of her water and was really just bump in the dirt. Next was lunch time (a very late lunch time) that consisted of shrimp kabobs for starters, a very large assortment of meats, along side rice and beans! So delicious, you don't even know. Then it was back to the apartment for another movie and some home-made brigadeiro (probably one of the best and easiest desserts ever). After the movie, since we didn't have dinner per-se, we went to an ice cream buffet! Oh my God, I was in heaven!!
The next morning was the same drill - wake up early to see what the weather was like; if it was nice we would go out, if not we would go back to bed for an hour. This time it was a gorgeous day!! So we all got into our bikinis and beach-wear and got ready for a day of absolutely nothing! The first beach we went to was Ingleses where we got the traditional summer-time/beach snack - corn on the cob! Other than that it was a lot of sleeping. So much sleeping in fact that everyone, save for Vanessa, got really impressive sun burns. But we didn't exactly realize just how burnt we were until much later. Two more beaches and a lunch later to be exact!
That night Anastacia Tracy and I hopped onto the bus home (because Vanessa was going to stay one more night) where I sat/layed for the next solid 24 hours because it was too painful to move.
Today I am looking almost normal. The only bit of burn that you can see is my left earlobe and my eyelids! When I showed Vanessa Kanaan my burn today she told me that she thought it was just eye shadow - don't know if that's better or worse :P On a different note my project is officially on track!! Today we weighed and measured all the turtles! We marked the ones that had lesions with a different colour so that they would be easier to spot. Only problem we ran into is that their markings are fading or peeling significantly now and so i have 8 turtles that either have the same number or no number at all. This means on Friday I need to get all of the turtles and remark the ones that have bad markings or no markings and re-weigh them. It won't be so bad - the hard part will be finding them! In any case I'm really excited that I get to actually be working on my own thing when I go there now :D

p.s. I tried to upload some pictures but it wasn't working for some reason... I might end up doing a blog later on of just some pictures and captions from the weekend :)

Much Love!
Karen

Necropsy (rating: pg13)

*WARNING* This blog contains some pictures from a necropsy that are not suitable for all viewers. For those that have weak stomaches or are faint of heart: viewer discretion is advised.

Earlier this week I was invited to watch Cris (the vet I work with at R3) do a necropsy on a baby fur seal that had died last week. She had arrived at the rehabilitation centre already pretty weak and was not eating very well during her stay. Shortly after arriving she had died; Cris thinks that it is likely because of pneumonia. I thought it would be a very interesting thing to watch and jumped on the opportunity to go. I asked Cris if Tracy would be welcome as well, because I knew she would be interested in it too, and Cris said "of course she is!" (I love her more and more each day!) So this morning Tracy and I meet up with Cris and two biology students at the biology section of campus to check out what the process is like.

For those who might be somewhat confused as to what a necropsy is, it's basically an autopsy but for non-human animals. First they started by skinning the fur seal - I was pretty surprised with how little this bothered me to watch; there were only a few times that I got grossed out. Once the pelt was removed they made sure that majority of the meat was removed to reduce the smell as it dries - I actually got to help with this part! I wasn't expecting to actually be allowed to get right in there but Cris is AWESOME and always promotes that I do things with her and not just watch as she does it. While a few of us were doing that Cris was taking little pieces of the kidney, the liver, the stomache, the heart, the lungs, and the large and small intestinges to send to Sao Paulo for biopsy reports. I was very surprised at the sizes of organs in relation to the others. The bladder and uterus were both really small; I wasn't too surprised to see that because she was just a young fur seal. But then once we saw the kidneys they seemed massive! Each kidney was about the size of two golf balls whereas the uterus was about one golf ball and the bladder was even smaller. The liver was also a lot bigger than I expected it to be; it was like a blanket wrapped almost completely around the whole stomache! Each lung wasn't much bigger than the kidneys were which was smaller than I thought they would be. It was all very interesting!

Once they had removed all the innards, the skeleton and what else was left was put into a green mesh bag that was sewn up at the top. This basically just keeps all the bones in the same sac while the body stays in this pool that allows the meat to break away. After about a month they will take the bones out and clean them off completely allowing them to reconstruct the skeleton. At this time the other biology student was mounting the pelt on a frame to let it dry properly.

The biology department has collected over 2000 skulls so far! I'm not sure how many are alongside of an intact skeleton but there is such a large mass of them that they don't have anywhere they can display them! They are trying to get the funding and enough people supporting them to build a proper museum for marine wildlife/biology. What they would like to be able to do is show all the bones they've collected, display the pelts, and to possibly have an area for penguins and/or other marine animals that can't be rehabilitated as well! They have everything they need minus the building :P I really hope that they can get this because it would be an amazing opportunity for all the biology students, as well as everyone else to learn from.


First part of the necropsy - Skinning
Removing the extra meat from the pelt to prepare it for drying

Mounting the pelt onto the canvas - Final step needed to dry!
The remaining skeleton in the mesh bag in preparation for the pool
The pool with other bags of bones - would not want to have to clean that
Baleen plate from a whale!! So cool - just look how big it is!
One of the many thousands of skulls they have... a Turtle!