Hawksbill Turtles, Seychelles
Since 2006 Rainer von Brandis has been studying hawksbill turtles at D'Arros Island in the Seychelles. He is working towards his Doctoral thesis focusing on the foraging habits of these turtles.
Over the past four years Rainer von Brandis has familiarised himself with a population of the usually timid hawksbill turtle in the Amirante Islands, Seychelles. This has allowed him to observe the turtles behaving naturally in their aquatic environment, revealing just how important they are for the maintenance of biodiversity on coral reefs.
The remote nature of Rainer’s study site, combined with a sound conservation policy in the Seychelles, means it supports relatively healthy turtle numbers. Consequently it has been possible to monitor how the hawksbill turtles function within a coral reef ecosystem outside of the relentless over-exploitation that has left them classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Gradually, Rainer has been able to determine their prey preferences, how much they eat, their habitat requirements and even social interactions.
Reef fish lurk for scraps as a hawksbill turtle dines on sponge. (Photo: Rainer von Brandis)
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More so than you might think.
Amongst marine researchers, the critically endangered hawksbill turtle is notoriously difficult to study in its natural habitat. Like tortoises, turtles are often viewed as slow, lumbering reptiles, but any scuba diver fortunate enough to see one in the wild will appreciate that encounters tend to be fleeting. These skittish creatures are usually seen darting into the blue, wary of any unfamiliar presence. Hawksbill turtles are typically cautious of anything larger than themselves due to the associated risk of predation, hence their tendency to avoid people and the subsequent problems faced when trying to study them.
Although their reproductive cycle is reasonably well understood from being so accessible when tirelessly digging their nesting pits on the beach, the difficulty of locating hawksbill turtles underwater, and crucially being able to observe them for any length of time, has meant that their feeding methods, prey preferences, social interactions and impact on their environment all largely remain a mystery.
Once used to his presence, these hawksbill turtles treated Rainer like any other marine denizen.
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