another perfect weekend

Although the season seemed to be coming to an end, we were pleasantly surprised to find four leatherbacks while surveying last night. It was an absolutely gorgeous night. The water was eerily flat and perfectly clear. You could see turtles swimming everywhere just offshore. At one point, we even saw a small shark swimming in Read more about another perfect weekend[…]

just about done

We are reaching that time of year when the leatherbacks have begun to move north in search of foraging grounds and the nest numbers have dropped off pretty dramatically. We’ve seen just 4 turtles in the last five days. We will likely continue to survey through this weekend and then call that the end of Read more about just about done[…]

Found her!

Last night at around 1:00am, we got the familiar and consistent beep-beep-beep-beepbeep-beep of Shehyn’s VHF tag. Her satellite transmitter led us to St. Lucie County at the start of the evening and from there we were able to determine her location offshore by listening to the beeps from her VHF tag. Every few minutes we Read more about Found her![…]

The chase is on!

Shehyn is transmitting beautifully and heading our way! Since we attached her transmitter one week ago, she has travelled 236 km during her journey to the Melbourne Beach area and back toward the nesting beach. We tracked three turtles last year using the same methods and each of those turtles traveled about 500 km each. Read more about The chase is on![…]

Busy girls

Aside from tracking Shehyn, we’re still busy on the beach each night. Last night we found 5 more leatherbacks. That seems to be about average along our regular 12 mile stretch. Two of the girls we encountered last night were on their 7th nests each and we’ve seen them both for every nest. Milan, one Read more about Busy girls[…]

She turned!

Shehyn, our tracked leatherback, has made the turn south and is headed back our way. Leatherbacks that nest along our survey beaches typically follow the same pattern. We know this from years of looking at satellite data. They use the Florida Current to swim north. Once they reach the Cape Canaveral area, the either keep Read more about She turned![…]

Where in the world is shehyn?

Two days ago, FLI researchers attached a transmitter to a nesting leatherback to monitor her movements during the internesting period. Leatherbacks nest up to 9 times in a season and typically nest every 9-11 days. Not much is known about their behavior in this short window so our team is tracking them during this time Read more about Where in the world is shehyn?[…]