A dedicated team of ARCHELON volunteers participated in the children's festival P100-Planet Technopolis with great success! Meanwhile, ARCHELON's educational programs for the new school year have already begun at the Rescue Centre.
 

We are sad to report that once more the touristic attraction of “turtle spotting” was fatal for a male loggerhead turtle resident in the area, which had been tagged and photographed by ARCHELON and was also known by the name “Hercules”.

No doubt you have noticed the ease, with which sometimes we refer to specific sea turtles. It seems natural to give the turtles names in the Rescue Centre, but what about who is who at sea? The answer lies with the “tagging” processes that are in use in ARCHELON projects and also worldwide.
 

It was the 29th of July and the public awareness team of Lakonikos bay project had set up an info table in Limeni during the “Ocean Man” sport event. One of the swimmers there approached the volunteers and reported the sighting of an injured sea turtle in the area.

Thanks to a notice received from a local enterprise in Kalamaki, Messara Bay, on July 22, 2019, the team of ARCHELON confirmed that the Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) also nests on Crete.
 

Greece hosts about 90% of the nests of the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) in the EU every summer and bears a unique responsibility amongst the EU member States for the conservation of this species. The awareness of the threats that sea turtles face in the Mediterranean led ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, to the establishment of ARCHELON’s Sea Turtle Rescue Center, 25 years ago. The Centre is one of the many places where young people can volunteer through via European Solidarity Corps (former European Voluntary Service (EVS) program).
 

Jo has been a remarkable leader for the public awareness activity in the Zakynthos project for a number of years. She has trained many volunteers, has given hundreds of presentations herself and has help a great deal in raising funds for the project.

The enthusiasm of the project team of Lakonikos was cut short, from the increased number of strandings of dead and injured turtles in the area. The incidents were reported by residents, visitors and the volunteers themselves. Big thanks to the people who spotted and informed ARCHELON about these strandings.
 

The information table of ARCHELON operated during the afternoons of the weekend from 7/6 to 9/6, together with several other nature related organizations.

Satellite tags were deployed in 12 loggerhead turtles in order to investigate their movements at sea between each nesting effort as well as their movements after their nesting is completed for the season.
 

We are happy to announce that a part of the exhibition is dedicated in help for saving the sea turtles and was created in collaboration with ARCHELON!

Every time I encounter a sea turtle underwater I recall Zakynthos in 2017, where I was ARCHELON’s monitoring assistant. I enjoyed so much the night surveys on the beaches and going snorkeling to observe these ancient reptiles underwater.

Last Sunday, the 19th of May, the volunteers who take care of the turtles welcomed about 500 people in the Rescue Center and guided them providing information about these magnificent marine creatures.

The following impressive migration story has been revealed to Dimitris Margaritoulis and Alan Rees through a combination of a satellite transmitter and flipper tags.

It all started in 2007, when Kostas Papafitsoros, now well known for his unique sea turtle pictures, saw a poster announcing ARCHELON’s conservation projects on the Athens metro and joined as volunteer.
Since then, he has been joining our projects every year, and his interest in sea turtle conservation brought him to photography and to research...