Over the past few nights we have encountered four or five leatherback turtles a night and the loggerheads have been really making their presence known! Last night there were probably about thirty loggerheads on our study area. Now that we are getting into the main sea turtle nesting season, we have put together a few “dos and dont’s” Read more about It’s now getting busy[…]
As we head into May, we thought we would give you a bit of an update on March and April. One of the more exciting bits of news to report is that we have received a grant from the Sea Turtle Grants Program which is funded by the sale of the “Helping Sea Turtle Survive” Specialty License Plate. We Read more about April Update[…]
Continuing a tradition that began waaay back in 2001, Its time to announce the arrival of the first Loggerhead sea turtles to appear on our study area. So far there have been three loggerheads tonight, but over the next few days these numbers will almost double each night. Our volunteers are now seeing a few leatherbacks each night but Read more about Here they come[…]
No, really. It is actually a big check! Several members of the team at Florida Leatherbacks Inc. recently accepted a donation from the National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation (NSTSTF) to support our study this upcoming research season. NSTSTF is a local non profit that supports many sea turtle conservation groups and we are very Read more about That’s a big check![…]
Here in Florida, the official start of sea turtle nesting season begins on March 1st. We are now really busy prepping our gear and working on developing a new data management system for the crew to use in the field. This new system will allow us to work much more efficiently and will now give Read more about 23 days until sea turtle nesting season here in Florida[…]
What tools do we use for this study? A lot! We use Honda All Terrain Vehicles (ATV’s) to patrol our entire survey area. Many thousands of kilometers are driven each summer and we have found that that Honda has been our most reliable ATV. Our study is a Mark / Recapture study where we utilize Passive Integrated Read more about Our tools[…]
During one of our nightly patrols, our team was very excited to encounter a nesting leatherback with a large Monel flipper tag on one of rear rear flippers. We often find turtles that were tagged at other beaches in Florida, but this was an especially exciting recapture! While many leatherbacks in the Caribbean are tagged Read more about A mystery[…]
The PAT tag that was attached to Katia has now been gathering and relaying data to us for 145 days and the battery is just now starting to show signs of failure. Her tag came off on October 15th and has been drifting in the Gulf Stream current system since then. If this tag didn’t Read more about 145 days[…]
Since the tag was released from Katia on 10/15/15 it has transmitted almost 10,000 messages via its small antenna. The latest message shows that the battery is still OK and it may be able to transmit for a few more days. While the tag is floating at the surface, it is attempting to send a complete Read more about Battery still good[…]
The Argos satellite system continues to relay data from the tag that Katia was towing. This tag is programmed to send as much data as it can before the small lithium battery is exhausted. As you can see from the image below, we have almost received a complete history from this tag. We are still Read more about Data streaming in[…]