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Dear turtle experts
I wonder if any of you can help with a nest
predation problem we have here in Tanzania.
The main egg predators are monitor lizards, honey
badgers and red ants. We protect the nests from the former two by placing
old fishing net over the nests. This has worked well. However, the red ants
continue to raid many nests and destroy them at any time during the incubation
period. We have seen some nests raided once the hatchlings have pipped the eggs,
so they are fully developed and others a couple of weeks into incubation. I do
not know the scientific name for these ants but they are relatively big (like
Safari ants) with large pinchers.
We have tried putting cold ash on the top of the
nest but this hasn't worked. Do any of you have any suggestions as to how we can
reduced predation by red ants? Any advice would be greatly
appreciated.
Many thanks in advance
Catharine Joynson-Hicks
SEA SENSE
Tanzania
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