Exploring the love of turtles with unreserved passion

While traveling to Costa Rica two years ago as part of a marine biology class spring break trip, Allyssa Hennessey was ready for anything. As soon as the field biologist started yelling “Baula! Baula!”—which means leatherback in Spanish—Hennessey started sprinting. Nothing was going to stop her from seeing her first sea turtle.

Hennessey, B.S. ’23, was able to log statistics on the first sea turtle she ever saw, a process that included sticking her head into the egg chamber to collect measurable data.

“For lack of a better term, it was like a high I had never felt before,” Hennessey said. “These animals are so amazing. I think that was the moment I said, `This is something I want to do for as long as I can.’”

And that was before she helped a loggerhead turtle with a missing flipper dig its egg chamber, got bitten, and even stabbed during other encounters. Though settling into a trance while laying eggs, sea turtles can still defend themselves if they notice someone disturbing their nesting process.

“I think it’s probably the fact that we know so much about them, but also so little,” the graduate student said. “It was recently that we discovered certain aspects of their behavior, yet it’s only in the last hundred or so years that we started studying them. The leatherback sea turtle is the largest reptile and one of the most deep-diving animals. You’d never think that about the same turtle you see on a beach.”

Hennessey talks passionately about the turtles, saying they have been laying eggs for millions of years on beaches before humans walked them. Though endangered, leatherbacks can live more than 50 years and grow to 2.000 pounds—all of which we know from females who lay their eggs on the same beach they were hatched from. No one knows how many males there are because they remain in the ocean.

There’s so much more we can learn about them, Hennessey said, suggesting she will do anything she can to help them survive. Her passion includes educating others, which she loves.

There are estimated to be fewer than 50,000 leatherbacks remaining, and the clutch size can be up to 100. They can also dive to 3,000 feet, sometimes foraging 6,000 miles from their nests for food, which is usually jellyfish.

“People always notice my earrings or my necklace, and I’ll say, `Yes, I am a sea turtle biologist,’” Hennessey said, which always draws the question, “In Indiana?” to which Hennessey replies, “Yes, let me tell you about it.”

That’s largely because of the work of PFW’s Frank Paladino, Jack W. Schrey Distinguished Professor of Biology, who organized the nonprofit Leatherback Trust in 2003. When Hennessey as a freshman approached Paladino about joining his lab, he told her to come back as a junior. That only made her more determined to prove her interest in working with him, and now she’s founder of the Marine Biology Club and Paladino’s graduate assistant.

“She’s very motivated and has a real lust for learning and for going and doing projects,” Paladino said. “Every door you open, she not only charges through but goes to the next door and opens it as well. She’s a wonder and is going to leave her mark, for sure.”

Hennessey also works with the Environmental Resources Center in the College of Science as a research assistant after completing an internship during her senior year. Bruce Kingsbury, director of the ERC and professor of biology, said Hennessey’s enthusiasm, engaging personality, and desire to get things done make her special.

“I have great expectations that she will be successful,” Kingsbury said. “Anybody who interacts with her and anybody who will have the opportunity to employ her in the future will be lucky.”

During her time at PFW, Hennessey has also traveled to Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Thailand to study. She plans on returning to Florida this summer to conduct research before heading back to Costa Rica in the fall, all while writing her thesis.

“It’s just really exciting to be part of something that in 40 years people are going to be saying, `This turtle came up on July 21, 2022,’” Hennessey said. “Right now, people are doing research where they look back at 40 years of data.”

Usually, that means staying up all night as the turtles drag themselves up the beach to build their nests. Hennessey said she’s watched the sunset and then the sunrise from the same beach many times while collecting data.

“I was not a night person, but I became one for turtles,” she said with a smile.