A Sea Turtle Picture A day # 96

Welcome back to A Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are heading up to Vancouver Canada. I am going to be taking 2 Green sea Turtles from Vancouver to Guam next weekend. A condition of the permit to allow then to travel to Guam is that they are both female. In sea turtles that are this young there is no way to outwardly tell the sex of the animal. But there is a way surgically to tell.
This picture is of Chris Harvey Clark the director of the animal care center at The University Of British Columbia performing a Laparoscopy. This is a surgical procedure where a small incision is made into the turtle and a small tube with a camera is inserted into the turtle. He is then able to locate and verify if the immature turtle has testis(male) or ovary(female).
We had to test 6 of the turtles at the animal care center to find our 2 females.

I am going back up to Vancouver on Thursday with the shipping crates to transport then to Seattle where they will go on a plane for that long trip to Guam.

I am sure that the trip down thru 2 border crossings will be a real treat.I will post pictures and details of this adventure.

This picture was taken with a Nikon D-90 camera with a 12-24 mm lens

See you tomorrow