Well it has been a while! Sorry for the lack of updates but the season always keeps us busy. Last night marked our 50th leatherback encounter of the year. Sadly, it’s been quite slow out there. Low leatherback numbers are being reported around the state. After a couple of low years in 2015 and 2016, we were hoping for a turnaround but it doesn’t look like this is the year. We’re hopeful this isn’t a long-term trend and that we’ll see a turn in the right direction next year. We have seen a total of 32 individuals, some as many as 3 times. 14 of these turtles are new turtles that were not previously tagged. Our oldest recapture is a turtle tagged in 2005. We still hope to see some of the turtles tagged back in the early 2000s. It’s always a treat when one of those old girls returns. Last night we encountered a total of five leatherbacks. Two of those hadn’t been seen since 2008 and 2009 so it’s always nice to get them back after such a long gap. We’re hoping for another good night out there as the winds continue to blow pretty good.
