ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM University of Hawaii-Hilo reptile biologist William Mautz looked at an instrument monitoring the temperature of 77 sea turtle eggs in two white coolers on Friday.

Experts hope to save
turtle eggs

Prospects for the rare clutch
found in Hilo remain unclear

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> Biologists have moved a clutch of rare olive ridley turtle eggs from the beach at Hilo Bay to an improvised hatching facility at the University of Hawaii at Hilo with the hope of saving at least some of them.

The mother laid the eggs at the water's edge on the night of Oct. 7. Students from UHH, under state supervision, reburied the eggs on higher ground.

Since then the eggs have not done well, said George Balazs, a marine turtle expert with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The temperature of the eggs was too low to ensure survival, Balazs said. Leaving them buried in the sand would have meant certain death, he said.

William Mautz, a reptile biologist at UHH, said the temperature in the clutch stayed at 75 degrees. It should have been 84 degrees for proper development of the embryos.

On Dec. 5, the 59th day after the eggs were laid, they were dug up again. Of the original 124, 47 appeared to have been infertile from the start, Balazs said.

Those were wrinkled and collapsed, Mautz said.

Of the remaining 77, 38 seem to have embryos growing, while the remainder are in doubt, Ba- lazs said.

Balazs, Mautz and Balazs' longtime collaborator, UHH marine biologist Leon Hallacher, created a hatching facility in an "animal room," a tiny cabin on the UHH campus. The eggs were placed in two Styrofoam coolers. The air in the room is kept hot and humid with bubbling hot water and a small heater.

Olive ridley turtles are rare and protected by law in Hawaii, although they are more numerous in tropical waters elsewhere.

Results of a DNA test, received here Saturday, confirmed that the mother is an olive ridley, Ba- lazs says. By today further information will show whether the mother came from the eastern Pacific (Mexico or Costa Rica) or the western Pacific (Thailand or neighboring parts of Southeast Asia), Balazs said.

The prospects for the eggs are unclear. "Everything about it is weird," said Mautz.

For example, the mother laid the eggs too late in the year, he said. She should have laid them in the summer when temperatures were warmer.

Although the eggs should have hatched in about 60 days, successful hatching up to 100 days after laying is possible, Ba- lazs said.

"We are clearly dealing here with the equivalent of a very high-risk 'pregnancy,'" Balazs said.

Once the babies hatch, a decision will be made on what condition they are in and on where and when to release them, Balazs said.

Hilo Bay front is not a good place for hatchlings because city lights could distract them away from the sea, Balazs said.

It is unknown if the babies, once mature, would return to Hilo Bay to breed, he said.

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University of Hawaii at Hilo