Brittany’s Week 2

We released Teanna this week. We drove to the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary to release her.  We got a tour of the facility and got to go behind the scenes and see Teanna weighed, measured, etc. She was also notched so if she was ever caught we would be able to identify her.

This week we also got to see how the process for taking x-rays works.  It was really cool because we are able to develop the film on site. We took x-rays of Bruce, Pierce and Vesuvius (the three cooter hatchlings). The x-rays were taken from all different angles for each of the turtles. We also had to wear these lead vests to protect us from radiation. Once we were done we went into a room in at the facility and had to tape around the door so that no light shown through that would potentially ruin the exposed film. The film was loaded into the machine and processed which was really cool but it all had to be done in the dark.  After that we went around and emptied the monofillament recycling bins along the canal.

Posted by Brittany W.
Brittany is a Summer, 2011 Intern at the National Marine Life Center.