Vanessa Bezy

Vanessa Bezy

Mar 28, 2016

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Why am I doing this experiment? The personal reasons.

The short answer is: This is one of the most incredible natural phenomenons I have ever seen and I want to protect it so that everyone has the chance to experience it.

Six years ago, I came to Ostional, Costa Rica as a research assistant and witnessed a mass nesting event for the first time. I will never forget my first night walking through an "arribada." We stopped at a small cliff in the sand along an estuary that had broken through the beach and Jean Jang quickly swept her white light across the beach to assess how we would continue. My jaw dropped, the beach was literally swarming with sea turtles!! I cannot think of a better way to describe it. The entire beach as far as I could see looked exactly the way that a beehive would if you had disturbed it except these were turtles.

(This photograph was taken in my first year at Ostional but the density of sea turtles during the day just does not do it justice... there are so many more at night!)

I spent the next several years conducting my Masters research at Ostional and honestly had no intention to continue with a PhD. But I found myself on the beach one day, taking samples of oxygen from a nest on the same day we had experienced a 7.2 magnitude earthquake and thinking to myself what a crazy scientist I had become. And in that moment, I knew that I was the one who needed to figure this one out.

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles arrive to nest together along the same small stretch of beach almost every month of the year at Ostional. This natural phenomenon occurs at a select few locations in the world and of the few mass nesting populations that exist, several have recently disappeared.

The mass nesting behavior in sea turtles is arguably one of the best opportunities to view and learn about sea turtles. I say this because the olive ridley is one of only two species that nests during the day, they have the highest tolerance for stress and are therefore the least likely to be disturbed by human presence, and they are also the most abundant of all of the sea turtle species.

But how can we possibly protect this incredible phenomenon when we know so little about it?

I hope this experiment will be the first of many to reveal the mystery behind this incredible natural phenomenon so that we can protect it as one of the great natural wonders that should be on everyone's bucket list for viewing!

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  • Kathleen Bezy
    Kathleen Bezy
    Congratulations Vanessa. So happy to see your inspirational dedication as a marine biologist! Your cousin Bernadette Bezy shared the same enthusiasm over the Posilopra Coral spawn just a few years ahead of you in Costa Rica as well. Go Bio-girls! xx Kathy Bezy
    Apr 11, 2016

About This Project

During the mass nesting of sea turtles, thousands of turtles emerge from the ocean to lay their eggs along a small stretch of beach. Despite our fascination with this natural phenomenon, almost nothing is known about how sea turtles manage to synchronize their behavior in this way. Our experiment will test whether sea turtles use olfactory cues to coordinate mass nesting behavior. Our results will inform conservation management to protect the future of this incredible natural phenomenon.

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