Survival chances lessen HILO >> Hope is dimming for the clutch of rare olive ridley sea turtle eggs laid in sand on Hilo's bay front in October.
for turtle eggs
Only 28 out of 124 eggs found
have any chance of hatchingBy Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.comNational Marine Fisheries turtle expert George Balazs of Honolulu said he and University of Hawaii at Hilo biologist William Mautz visited the 77 eggs at an improvised incubation facility at UH-Hilo last week.
They removed 49, leaving only 28 that offered "some hope," Mautz said in an e-mail statement. The 28 eggs were "candled," held to a bright light to see their interior, Mautz said.
"Candling suggests that many of these have small, probably dead embryos, but the eggs are round and firm enough that it is worth keeping them under incubation," he said.
The 77 eggs were taken from the Hilo bay front on Dec. 5 because the sand they lay in was too cold for them to develop. They were part of an original clutch of 124 eggs, but biologists immediately determined that 47 of those eggs were infertile.
Under good circumstances olive ridley eggs would hatch in 60 days, but nature sometimes extends that period. Today will be the 82nd day since the eggs were laid.
"We simply won't know for sure, one way or the other, until about day 95, the extreme duration of sea turtle egg incubation," Balazs said.
Balazs praised biologists' efforts to save the eggs of the species, which is rare in Hawaii but more numerous elsewhere.
"The incubation lab you've set up is outstanding," he wrote to Mautz and his colleague, Leon Hallacher.
The team can take satisfaction from knowing they have tried their best and at least the mother was saved by fishermen who kept her from crawling onto a bay-front roadway, Balazs said.
University of Hawaii at Hilo
