Ocean Guardians: Voices for Sea Turtle Conservation featuring Scott Eanes

Welcome to the first interview in our series Ocean Guardians: Voices for Sea Turtle Conservation. Today we are featuring our interview with Scott Eanes, founder of our partner organization, The Hawksbill Project, a sea turtle conservation project based in the UK.

The Hawksbill Project crew, including our Head of Operations, Miles Brill, with a hawksbill turtle they captured for biometric data in Carriacou, Grenada.

So I just want to start with you just giving a short overview of what you guys did in Grenada. What were the main findings from that trip? Who was involved and what were the impacts that you guys made on that trip?

So this is funny because the story's obviously always a little bit bigger. So 2007 is when I got my start. Now in the sea turtle world, it’s pretty small. It's pretty well connected. So we kind of need to start somewhere. Ocean Spirits in Grenada gave me my start and it gave me so much more because it is actually how I bumped into my wife, and now, we have a beautiful son that I couldn't imagine not having. So Ocean Spirits in Grenada is where I started and basically kind of opened everything up for me. Fast forward sixteen years later, give or take, and I am sitting in England. I don't live in the US Virgin Islands anymore, and I have to do sea turtle research, I just have to. So, I started a project here called The Hawksbill Project. That project’s specific goal is to assist other projects with their goals as it relates to critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles. So that can be a variety of goals. For example, I think I would like to help an Italian woman who runs a project in Egypt and she really wants to build a rehab facility. Rehab is a huge part. But as it relates to Grenada specifically, in 2022 our goal was about $12,000 to $14,000 to do the first in-water assessment of hawksbill sea turtles for the island of Carriacou. So you have islands all throughout the Caribbean everywhere, and you don't know what you have in terms of sea turtles until you look.  So that's basically what we did in 2022, we looked. Which is a very simple way of saying we got in the water and we basically swam around most of the island of Carriacou just counting turtles. The benefit is you have to start somewhere, right? So someone goes “we think we have hawksbill sea turtles.” We don't know how many they have. So we actually went in and did an assessment. This creates a baseline study, which then at least, that's if you do nothing else, you have some information. More than none. But the beauty of it is that while we didn't see as many as we would have liked to have seen, we did narrow it down to a particular area in Carriacou where we saw the most. And we saw a pretty good number of them. So the beauty of that, is you do that first year and it's frustrating and tiring and straining and you're sitting there you're going “I'm not seeing them here and seeing them here” and so we kind of walk away and you go, that was exhausting. What do we get from it? The idea is we got a lot actually because now when we went back the second year, it allowed us to be much more focused in terms of where we were going to do things. The first year, the point is to make an assessment of the habitat as it relates to the turtles. So if you can catch them, great, document them. If you see them, you're recording at least an observation. So in year one, 2022, we were able to document seven turtles. This year, it was sixteen. And not only that but the observations went from about thirty to about sixty. So double the observations more than double the captures. So all of that really assists in building a picture of how the hawksbill population operates in Carriacou, Grenada. 

What type of data are you gathering? Is it size? Male vs. female, things like that.

Yes. So at the very least observations. Observations are very important in science. If you have more observations in one place than the other then you can kind of make an assessment. We're seeing them here. We're not seeing them in the other location, but in terms of the actual data, we want hands-on time with these turtles and then we are taking biometric data. We're taking all kinds of measurements, length, width and then we're taking genetic samples, blood. Then these animals are PIT tagged and flipper tagged so they have two forms of identification. 

So tell me a little bit more about how you get the turtles in order to obtain this biometric data, I know you do free diving for turtle capture. 

That is absolutely correct. We can do it in a variety of ways so we can do this dip netting, we can do this rodeo, we can do this scuba capture, we can do this free diving. This particular project is a freediving project. So that's how we get hands on the turtles.

A green sea turtle photographed by The Hawksbill Project.

What kind of impact does this biometric data have on conservation? And how far can that data go?

So you're asking how useful that data is? 

Yes.

That data is incredibly important. It is incredibly important because what you're doing, again, is creating a baseline study. So, if you catch a turtle in Carriacou, Grenada and you can say this turtle is this size at this weight, right? Then it allows you not only to assess the turtle within the habitat itself, but using that to judge it against other turtles in other habitats, So for example, if turtles weigh less than they should perhaps, compared to the rest of the Caribbean you can say, these turtles are a little underweight. Likewise, if they're overweight you can say okay, the turtles are big and fat and healthy and they're finding a lot of food. They're in good shape. That is an enormous part of the data collection is the actual health of the turtles. Then as it relates to the genetic stuff, it's just one more layer of information that we get in terms of the health of the animal and the possible sex of the animal. And most people don’t know this, but it is very unlikely that the turtles we are capturing in Carriacou are from Carriacou themselves.  Their nesting habitat isn’t big enough to support that population. What happens more often than not is sea turtles lay their eggs in a nest, they hatch out of that nest, and then crawl into the ocean where they scatter about and then they end up in a near shore reef habitat somewhere else, not likely to be where they were born. And so what that means is when we get hands on them, the genetic data is what we're after. We can take skin and blood samples and then we get their genetic information. Because sea turtle work in the Caribbean is quite possibly the most and best documented region in the world, we have a good idea that when we take their genetic information, we can then link it to their native origin so we can tell you where they're coming from.

Our campaign is also raising funds to purchase satellite tags for these turtles. What is the benefit of using satellite tags over what you are currently doing?

There are a couple answers to this. So before we did any work in Carriacou, there was nothing, so it was what we call data deficient, which means there just isn't any data on a place. So more than likely what happens then is then you get these anecdotal stories where someone thought they saw a turtle once or people say “they’ve seen turtles here”, or “I know I've seen turtles there” and you just don't know anything until you know something. So the point of The Hawksbill Project is to assist projects that are already established in hopefully expanding their range of what they do. That allows us to address these data deficient areas like Carriacou, for example, or we just did one in St. John in the US Virgin Islands. All of this is like an enormous puzzle and you're just figuring out what pieces go where and how they fit. Whereas before you would go, I don't know what this piece of puzzle is and I don't know where it goes. Now, we can sit there and say okay we know St. John, we know Carriacou, and the idea is you keep doing this repetitively year after year and you gain more and more information. As it relates to satellite tagging, that is an excellent tool because one of the big things that we want to establish again, because it's all about connectivity, is these turtles are more than likely not going to stay where they are forever. These are highly migratory animals. They have been in the ocean for millions of years. If they want to leave a habitat, or change their habitat, or for whatever reason the habitat changes and they want to leave, they can do so. The bottom line is we would like to be able to monitor that movement behavior when we aren't present which is what a satellite tag allows us to do. So, if the turtle is born in Barbados but lives in Antigua, it can travel through a number of other countries before it gets back to Barbados. Those countries may have different rules and laws and different approaches to conservation and sea turtles. So if we monitor them we can see them actually move then we know more in terms of telling Barbados or Antigua how their turtles move. Satellite tags are very important in that we want to be able to know where these animals are coming from, where they're going and how they're spending their time.

What is the pricing on satellite tags?

Is it absolutely dependent upon what you get. It can be anywhere from a thousand to $1500 usually and then, what is very frustrating is you think you bought the tag and now you're good to go. But it’s actually the monitoring of the tag, so it's the recording of the data and the transmission of the data that actually cost you equally about as much so if I had a ballpark I’d say probably about $3,000. 

My last question for you is what is your ideal set of trips for 2024, where do you want to go?

I'm going with eight proposals for projects for 2024 and I don't necessarily have a top of the line. To some extent, the goal of the project that I've started is to support projects who exist, perhaps on the fringe, who maybe have trouble fundraising or that fundraising isn't their strength. But their population of turtles are very important because they're data deficient or they're on the edge, that kind of thing. So, I don't have a preferred project. But what I can tell you is that if a project is already set up, the infrastructure is already there, it makes it easier for us to support them. Okinawa, Japan is high on my list because they fit all the credentials and all of the requirements of all the things that I'm looking for. They're eager, they want an in-water project to start doing turtle work, they have hawksbill sea turtles, which nobody knows anything about and again, on the fringe. They're not even really counted in the Western Pacific. Honduras is also very high on my list because I’ve been talking to the gentleman who does work in Honduras and the infrastructure is there. The logistics of it would be much simpler and much easier to do.  However, this being said, if Egypt were to come in and say look, boom, this is A+ material, then maybe I would say, okay we need to do Egypt. We did one project in 2022,  that was Carriacou. We did two projects in 2023 in Carriacou and St. John. 2024's goal is three projects. The point is, three projects in 2024 is the minimum of what I'd like to do. I'd like to add one more project and then that goes with the idea that our goal is not to set up shop forever in a place. Our goal is to get in, assist the project that’s local with what they want to do, and then we’re off to help somebody else. Because, what I've learned through this is that there are so many good projects and good people looking for money and that's just always the finite issue is how much money you need to accomplish what you need to do. So, I've talked to Egypt in the Red Sea, Montserrat, the Caribbean. I've talked to the Maldives, Okinawa, French Polynesia down to Tahiti, and all of these projects are good people who want to do really good work and what they need is unfortunately the most important thing, which is money. So if we have a chance, I would love to support as many projects as we can. I mean I have not spoken to one project where I think, I don't want to support you.  I literally think, I would love to support all of you. This is why we really do three years in one place and then hopefully I would love to do a transitional project. For example, Carriacou’s year three is coming up. There's going to be a conversation about how this is the last year. How can we help the local project go forward?. They can do this because they’re the local entity. How do we help you for your fourth year, fifth year, sixth year, seven. We will help you as much as we can. What do you need?

I love that. I think that will also resonate well with our donors. We are making a lasting impact on these local populations and then helping as many as we can.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, thank you for sitting down for an interview with me. I hope you have a great night and enjoy the rest of your weekend. It was lovely to meet you.

Yes, you too, it was lovely to meet you.